Advice regarding Google searches

[Nathan]

The wonderful @eras has this brilliant advice for us:

@eras

So, advice from a savvier friend who managed to get another website into number 1 hit on google in nz for a hobby of mine ( a few years ago now), to get the forum more visible via a google search:
-Try to get links from official websites - e.g. MoH COVID response page
-Also an article in NZ doctor or similar NZ publication
-Using the same words as what people might be searching for: e.g. “covid-19 healthcare forum nz” within the publicly visible section of the forum (at the moment what I can see on the public/login has no reference to covid, and even beyond you’ve got anti-COVID which is obviously positive, etc, but not quite what comes to mind when searching).

Right - how do we get into publications? I’ve just sent a LinkIn message to the NZ Doctor editor (Simon Maude.

@RMcBeth - can you help? I’m pretty snowed under and would appreciate any help or advice.

[Nathan]

More gold from @eras:

@eras

More advice, from another friend (sorry I’ve only got my phone to play with right now):

In general SEO is about being presenting your information as clearly as possible - for humans rather than search engines. If you do this and follow a few basic technical rules then search engines won’t have any problems with your site. After that it’s all over to how you promote it.

• Change your H2 to an H1. All pages should have an H1 which describe what it’s about.
• Your H2/H1 doesn’t say anything about COVID19, but according to the title meta tag that’s what it’s all about. Change your H1 so it’s the same as or more like your title - " Health Forum NZ - NZ’s anti-COVID19 health practitioner forum". If in doubt make them identical.
• In your page content, describe the purpose and goal of the site rather than leading with technical login info. Google is attempting to read your site like a human does and will classify/rank accordingly - so if there’s not much on the page about COVID19 then when people search for COVID they probably won’t find your site.
• If this is a dedicated COVID forum then it would be clearer to potential users if this in the name and domain. However if this domain and name are decided then don’t worry, as lots of sites don’t do this and they are still successful.
• Promote the site so people know about it - they won’t just stumble on it via Google unless they’re lucky, especially as it is new and fairly unknown. Consider stuff like FB, google ads and offline methods as well.

[Nathan]

@Nathan

Right - how do we get into publications? I’ve just sent a LinkIn message to the NZ Doctor editor (Simon Maude).

Just had my interview with Simon this afternoon. He tells me that he has made New Zealand Doctor free access from Monday, which is brilliant.

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