3 minutos
Doing SEO (search engine optimisation) for a website is optimising its visibility through changes in its structure and information. To understand the concept, I recommend two articles. One is the Blog de Infoautónomos (Blog for the self-employed) and the other is Ginés Mayol para Negocios Locales (for local businesses).
1.- Make yourself famous and take a rest.
With SEO Off Page, we acquire relevance through backlinks from other websites. If your designs have links from Dezeen or ArchDaily, their value will increase. The same holds if your colleagues or your clients speak of you in their blogs, on their websites and in the social media.
2.- Are we architects or “arquitectos”?
SEO On Page defines itself as the combination of specific key words in a site’s content (in its headlines, its text in bold, its internal links, the metadescription and the images’ alternative texts.)
For instance, if I write a post about “SEO for architects”, then this combination of words will need to be present in the title of the post (which it is), in the URL (which it should be) and in the content (triple check).
Also, Google.es does not translate meaning. So, if we want to interact with the Spanish market, we shouldn’t be using the English language, not even on social networks like Linkedin. And let’s admit, oftentimes we architects like to present ourselves using English words like “strategists”, “design managers” or “architects”.
3.- Think globally. Act locally.
In our sector, the preferred combination of key words may be that which links the word architects with our location or our studio (Madrid, Murcia, and so forth) because our starting point is that we are in local business.
There is also a lot of competition in cities with many inhabitants. Positioning “arquitectos Madrid” is not the same as positioning “architects Torremolinos”. In Madrid, to set yourself apart from the rest, you can use the combination of key words, grouping them together with others that describe your most frequent activity: business licences, marketing for architects, interior design, and so forth. The more specific your service and the less competition you have, the greater the chances for success, while the less competition you have, the greater the chances for success.
4.- A picture is not worth more than a thousand words
Google’s search algorithms attach priority to text as opposed to pictures. This makes it important to write descriptions on the homepage.
Those of us architects with a graphic portfolio prefer visual homepages aligned with our corporate images and our professional identity. If we absolutely can’t do without a snapshot on the first screen, we should make sure that the size of the image doesn’t slow down the loading of the page which shouldn’t take more than four or five seconds.
5.- Friends, don´t be spammers
If we don’t explicitly mention that we are architects, it can make things confusing for clients, and also the World Wide Web. Information shouldn’t be mistaken for promotion.
Google attaches a premium to the search word appearing in the URL, but over optimising a website for the sake of a key word (in other words writing it twenty times without any rhyme or reason) can generate bewilderment among clients and is penalised by search engines. It is important to strike a balance.
6.- Competence is the mother of science
Find the three websites that are in the top three Google places for the combination of key words that you are interested in and study their structure, their backlinks, their headlines and their URLs.
Register for professional directories like Houzz and Habitíssmo. Pay special attention to Google My Business check your postal address.
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I hope these tips have been of use. In any event, if SEO enhances our potential to be seen, with SEM (search engine marketing) they are multiplied. Just to entice you, I’ll leave you with this article I published a couple of years ago in Sergio Vázquez’ blog .
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There should be another follow-up post where we see whether the SEO worked.
Note: I am writing this post in order to position the combination of SEO key words for architects SEO para Arquitectos. If in six months there is no trace of the article left in Google, delete me from your list of contacts (although I remain in your hearts.)
