Boost your website’s visibility with expert SEO strategies for Christchurch companies

Visibility is critical for business success, because customers will only choose you if they first know about you. In days gone by, gaining this visibility was a matter of choosing a nice spot on the high street, and putting your name up in lights through traditional advertising, like TV, radio and print.

But times have changed, and changed dramatically. Unlike your physical storefront, your digital storefront – i.e. your website – grants the opportunity to get in front of literally billions of people: anyone with an internet connection. On the flipside, it also places you in competition with every other business on earth who wants to grab the attention of the same sets of eyes.

In this article we’ll take a closer look at search engine optimisation (SEO) – the practice of rising above the noise and to the top of the Google rankings, in order to get more customers to choose you. But we’ll do so through the lens of a Christchurch business, because we’re Christchurch locals ourselves!

If you’re a business owner you’ve probably seen the spam emails: “We’ll get you to the TOP of Google TODAY with our SEO secret sauce!” While such emails are inevitably scams (SEO takes months to reap rewards, not hours), they do get to the heart of what search engine optimisation is – the quest to rank as high on Google as possible for relevant keywords.

SEO is a set of strategies and techniques that make your website more Google-friendly. These can include placing relevant keywords throughout your site, offering up educational and/or entertaining content, making your site easy to navigate, enhancing the speed and performance of your site, earning backlinks from other sites, and connecting your site to your social media profiles.

The more Google likes your site, the higher it will rank on the search engine results page (SERP).

Google remains the undisputed champion of search, enjoying a global market share of well over 90%. That means that whenever a potential customer searches for something that you offer, they’ll almost certainly be conducting that search through Google.

But to rank on Google isn’t enough. You need to rank high. Almost 40% of all clicks on Google go to the number one organic result. Almost 70% of all clicks go to the top three results. On the flipside, only 0.63% of people get to page two of the Google results. In short, if you’re not on page one for relevant keywords, you may as well not show up at all. So if you are a Christchurch company looking to secure local business, SEO is still important, however, the ranking results can be easier to come by in some markets as you have less competition to contend with. However, if you are competing with international organisations touting for work in Christchurch or you are a local company interested in international markets, the competition can be significantly tougher. They can have much larger budgets and SEO teams compared to what you are able to invest in, so being smart about your SEO strategy and what you go after is key.

It’s also important to note that SEO isn’t just a concern for online businesses. If you own a physical store or premises in Christchurch, local SEO services, strategies and techniques can ensure that whenever a local customer is looking for what you offer, they are directed your way.

While SEO encompasses a wealth of tricks and techniques, there are two overarching strategies that your business should focus on: on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO describes strategies and techniques that you can apply to your own site, and that you have full control over. Examples include:

• Keywords and content: To get your website noticed, it’s key to use the same language your customers are searching for. Focus on keywords that are trending but not too competitive. Don’t just stuff your content with keywords—make it valuable with blogs, guides, and videos that draw in clicks. Remember, SEO isn’t just about numbers; your brand’s personality should shine through. SEO pros often miss the mark here. If your site doesn’t stand out, you’ll blend in with the noise and miss out on visitors.
• Technical SEO: You need to make sure your website performs well from a technical standpoint. This means ensuring it loads quickly, works seamlessly across all devices (mobile, tablet, and desktop), and is easy for search engines to crawl and index. Optimising elements like page speed, mobile responsiveness, and clean coding can significantly boost your site’s visibility and user experience, helping it rank higher on Google. There are plenty of tools out there that will tell you what to do in this space, however the rule book changes often in what search engines care about. Our latest research demonstrates that load speed and mobile user experience are still king, but alt image titles, meta data and outbound links have less relevance. And although this is true today, it could change tomorrow, which is why testing and knowing where to invest your time on these activities is key. It’s not always wise to do everything that SEMRush, Search Console or Moz tell you to do when it comes to technical SEO.
• Navigation:Make sure your site’s structure is Google-friendly so it can easily crawl and index your pages—this helps with rankings. But don’t forget about the human side! Visitors need to find what they’re after fast, or they’ll bounce. Simple menus, a clear hierarchy, and smart internal links make life easier for everyone, whether it’s search engines or users. With smooth navigation, you’re making sure your site gets seen and keeps people sticking around. Remember if Google or other search engines notice that people come to your site but don’t deeply engage with your site, they will look to de-rank your position as they will begin to believe that your content is irrelevant for the search term or not unique or helpful enough for the reader.
• Tags and links: Your website should feature internal links to connect the different parts of your site, and helpful information in the form of title tags, alt text and meta descriptions that help Google understand what your site offers visitors. As we mentioned in technical SEO, some of these items are more important than others. If you are facing a competition score of between 25 and 60, we would suggest spending more time on keywords and content as well as navigation and less time here. If your technical score is less than 60, we would suggest boosting that to 90. The list goes on, there is always more to do, so use numbers to help guide where to put the effort and get the greatest results first.

Off-page SEO is a set of SEO strategies and techniques that focus on how your online presence relates back to your website. Examples include:

• Backlinks: When another site links back to yours, it’s essentially a vote of confidence for your site, and can make you more trustworthy and authoritative in Google’s eyes.
• Social media: While the connection between your social media profiles and your search engine ranking is loose, having active profiles that link back to your site can help with SEO.
• Mentions: Mentions are essentially backlinks without the link – another site mentioning your brand name without sending the reader to your site. While less valuable than backlinks, these mentions still count for something in SEO.
• Google Business Profile: Completing a Google Business Profile is perhaps the most critical off-page SEO action you can take. It places you in Google’s business directory, on Maps and in rich results.

This last point is key for local SEO in Christchurch. If there’s one SEO service in Christchurch that you should prioritise, it’s setting up and optimising a Google Business Profile. This ensures that you come up as a result for local search queries: those that include “Christchurch” or are conducted on Google Maps.

It has been said that 46% of Google searches have ‘local intent’ – i.e. they include location as part of the query. Your business should be capitalising on that fact by ensuring both Google and your customers know exactly where you’re located, when you’re open, and what you offer. A well-crafted Google Business Profile does all that and more.

Digital marketing also plays a key role in your Google visibility, though these marketing strategies focus on paid rather than organic search: the spots marked [Ad] that sit at the very top of the Google SERP.

Search engine optimisation is a deep and complex discipline. If your business is to succeed in climbing the Google rankings, you’ll need some professional help. But what exactly does this help look like? Here’s what to look for in a Christchurch SEO team.

• Expertise: You’ll want help from a highly talented team of SEO experts – but this can be a difficult thing to measure if you aren’t an expert yourself. A good starting point is to check the agency’s website for thought leadership articles and explainers (like this one).
• A proven track record: Does the agency have a proven track record of helping businesses in Christchurch to rank higher? Have they worked with a business like yours before? Browse case studies and testimonials to find out.
• Reviews: What do the agency’s current customers say about them? Check their Google reviews for uncurated insight into what the agency is like to work with.
• A local presence: Any SEO agency, no matter where they’re located, can optimise for keywords like SEO Christchurch, SEO in Christchurch and SEO company in Christchurch, so it’s important to check whether the agency is actually in Christchurch, because local knowledge goes a long way in understanding the customers that you’re hoping to attract.

At Traction Marketing we are an SEO agency who ticks all the boxes above. We are SEO experts who have spent years helping Christchurch businesses rank higher on Google, no matter their marketing budget, and we have the reviews to prove it!