Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

This guide describes explains the basics and best practices of SEO, specifically for creating optimised government content.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of getting pages to rank higher in search engines, such as Google. SEO allows search engines to understand your website content, while also helping users find your site through a search engine via relevant search queries (Source).

SEO for government content 

• Governments worldwide strive to overcome the challenges of creating digitally accessible content, often hindered by time constraints and organisational limitations.

• Search algorithms can present opportunities, especially those prioritising government content.

SEO best practices

• Create helpful, people first content:

  • Focus on creating high quality content that is helpful or useful to the audience

  • Incorporate relevant keywords naturally

  • Break down content into easily digestible segments, targeting a reading level of grade 8 or below.

  • Ensure thorough coverage of topics, address user search queries effectively and stand out amongst competitors.

  • Integrate relevant questions from Google's "people also ask" feature to enhance content relevance

  • Utilise multimedia content (video, images, etc.) when applicable

• Provide a positive page experience (Source): 

  • Monitor and implement technical updates based on Core Web Vitals guidelines, prioritising based on their impact

  • Prioritise mobile-friendly content

  • Use canonicals/redirects to avoid duplicate content and consolidate pages

• Add valuable metadata:

  • Write descriptive page titles that attract visitors

  • Use page descriptions that are unique and describe what the pages are about

  • Add relevant keywords to headers and subheadings

  • Implement schema markup

• Implement linking practices to aid Google in contextualising site content:

  • Internal linking guides users throughout your content, while also aiding Google in contextualising pages

  • Use strong anchor text

  • Create content that attracts inbound links from other sources

Tools and resources for SEO

• Google Search Console and Google Analytics can help you find insights into search performance and identify opportunities for improvement:

  • Beginners in content design and optimisation should explore our Introduction to GA4 dashboard training for foundational knowledge.

  • The search performance dashboard provides comprehensive data, similar to that seen in Google Search Console, for understanding site or section performance.

• Our Measure how content performs - digital guide offers detailed SEO-specific information.