While some businesses have struggled as a result of the Coronavirus lockdown in Perth, other businesses have had some significant opportunities created for them.
As a fully accredited decontamination cleaning company, Kleen Slate Services had the credentials to clean up a work site or residence after a contamination. Lewis called me in late March and was very keen to get some content on his website around Coronavirus Clean up.
The Goal of the Article
He wanted to use the content to educate other businesses on best hygiene practices to ensure they were minimising risk of exposure to the virus. He also wanted to present Kleen Slate Services as a commercial cleaning service that could assist if that was what was needed in a workplace.
The Halo team were onto it. Writing content that served the purpose of adding value by providing some helpful information but also hoping to rank for some search terms such as “Coronavirus Cleaning Perth”.
Our Content Writing Approach
We applied best optimised the article so that it was clear to the search engines this was a highly relevant article for the Coronavirus related keywords. We also ensure that the article was a good read for humans. Succinct, clear and to the point so that people would actually find it helpful.
In short we wrote for both humans and search engines. Yep. There is a way to write for both.
We provided some content and keyword research to our content team and they started writing late March. One week later, the content was approved and live on the site.
The article was published April 2, complete with images, external and internal linking optimisation and an optimised heading structure that search engines could easily digest.
The Result
Given Google can take some time to crawl, index and evaluate a new piece of content, we weren’t expecting much for a couple of weeks. We were wrong. 7 days after the article was published on April 9th the article was ranking second for “Covid 19 Cleaning Perth”. Most importantly, Kleen Slate Services has had enquiries as a result of this content.
About 5 days later they were top position for “Coronavirus Cleaning Perth”. They were even above WA Government websites such as WA Health.
Why Does it Happen?
Google rewards content. But not just any content. It has to be written and structured strategically according to the keywords we are targeting for it.
Contrary to what many people believe, there is no artificial intelligence when it comes to Google. It is simply a mathematic algorithm that is is looking for a combination of words, entities and structure. These elements, when combined with the right “signals” from other pages on the website and links from other websites combine to achieve rankings for given keywords.
Our Search Engine Optimisation Services
While no one really knows the full Google Algorithm Patent (there is a joke that most employees at Google don’t even know it), we can put in a combination of best practices to maximise your chances of ranking in the search results. It doesn’t always happen quickly. Sometimes rankings can even go backwards, but overall as we build content and information according to best practices, the general trajectory is more relevant traffic and leads.
In fact at the time of writing this, we have seen the article drop a few places to 4th position for “Covid 19 Cleaning Perth” but 1st position (above WA Health) for “Coronavirus Cleaning Perth”. So it’s not an exact science and I don’t want to create any illusions that it is. But as mentioned, consistent, healthy SEO (optimising your site, adding content and building links) will build the prominence of your business online over time.
For example, take a look at the overall trajectory for Kleen Slate Services for the last 12 months. We started basic SEO for them 9 months ago. The graph shows daily clicks through to their site from Google for various search terms:
Below you can see Kleen Slate Services growth in the number of Search Result Positions over time. This data comes from a premium SEO tool called Ahrefs.
Final Thoughts
I don’t want to create the wrong impression that SEO is immediate. It takes time. Consistent content and link building over time will achieve relevant traffic to your website. Relevant traffic will translate to awareness of your business and leads.
What I hope you see from this article is how being in a strong position with the search engines can create opportunity for your business. We don’t know what lies ahead. But it is fairly certain that the digital landscape is here to say and that SEO should be a part of your overall marketing strategy as a business.
Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about SEO for your Perth business.
