Search engine optimization is something that many businesses struggle with. This is particularly true if you’re just starting out or don’t have much experience with websites. It can feel like a bit of black art at first, but thankfully there are some basic principles that you can follow to improve your SEO.
In this blog post, we outline seven simple tips that can help you optimize your website and drastically increase its visibility online. You might think the only people who need to understand search engine optimization are those who own sites with lots of content.
And while this may be true for some, even smaller websites need great SEO to attract visitors and keep them coming back. Whether you have a blog, an e-commerce site, or any other type of website, these seven tips will help get potential customers to find (and come back to) your site sooner rather than later.
Make Your Site Fast and Responsive
If your site loads slowly, or if it fails to load at all, visitors will likely bounce off before they ever get anywhere. Slow load times are a surefire way to get people to leave your site. A good goal for site speed is to load within three seconds. If your site loads too slowly, there are a few quick things you can do to speed things up.
First, check your hosting. If you’re currently hosting your site on a server that’s far away from your readers, your site will take longer to load. Switching to a local provider can make a big difference. Your actual site design can also affect speed. Avoid using too many large images, as these can significantly slow down your site.
It’s also a good idea to use a content management system (or CMS) to help you with any content creation. A fully customized website can take a lot of time and money to build, but with a CMS, you can have a basic site up and running in a couple of hours.
7 Tips to improve your SEO
- Make your site mobile-friendly – You may not think of your site as being all that different on a desktop compared to mobile, but it’s something Google can see, and they’ll take action. And if your site is not mobile-friendly, it can seriously hinder your search engine optimization. Mobile-friendly design is essential for getting more traffic from Google. Google will now lower your site’s ranking if it doesn’t think your site is mobile-friendly. Your site’s design and functionality should be similar regardless of whether someone is viewing it on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
- Optimize your meta descriptions – A meta description is the short snippet of text that shows up below your site’s title in search engine results. This can be a critical factor in getting people to click on your site from one SERP over another. Google often pulls descriptions from your content and uses them as is. Keep this in mind when writing your blog posts, as you want your website to stand out.
- Create quality content – There is no substitute for well-researched, original content. Don’t expect to rank highly just by using keywords in your title and body. Make sure your content is of the best standard possible before you publish it anywhere.
- Make your site appealing to Google – Google wants to rank you highly, so you need to make them want to do so. The best way to make Google happy is to have a site that loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and has high-quality content. All of those things are within your control, even if you’re not a web developer.
- Optimize your site’s title tag – Your title tag is what shows up in search engine results and links to your site. It’s also one of the most important parts of your SEO efforts, as it influences your click-through rate. Make sure each title is short (approximately 70 characters) and click-worthy.
- Build relationships with readers – Getting lots of backlinks from other sites and having a large social media following can be great, but it’s not real organic SEO. Instead, try reaching out to other bloggers in your niche and forming relationships with them. Comment on their posts, send them emails and share their content on social media.
- Make your site’s title tag ultra-clear – If someone is searching for something, they’re probably typing in a very specific phrase. Make sure your title tag reflects this as much as possible. Make it as clear and concise as you can.
Write Quality Content
If there’s one thing you take away from this post, it should be the importance of good content. This doesn’t just refer to the text on your site – it applies to your images, videos, and other media too. The more high-quality content that’s available on the internet, the harder Google has to work to decide which websites are the most relevant for each search term.
That’s why it’s so important to create the best content that you possibly can. Your content should be useful. It should provide readers with insight and knowledge rather than just a few laughs. If you can do that, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor when it comes to SEO.
Make Your Site Appealing to Google
As you create your website and add articles to it, don’t just focus on what your readers want. Instead, ask yourself what Google wants from your site. What does each page need to do? What does each image need to show? How can you make your site as useful for Google as it is for your readers? When it comes to optimizing your website’s content for search engines, there are two main factors to focus on: content and site structure.
When it comes to content, the more high-quality words you have on each page, the better. This doesn’t mean you need thousands of words on each page (although you can certainly add more if you want to). You simply need to have enough text so that Google can understand what your page is about.
Also, if your website has thousands of pages, but they’re all short paragraphs, it will likely hurt your SEO rather than help it. Site structure refers to how your site is organized. This includes the order in which your pages appear, how many internal links you have, and how your pages link to each other.
Don’t Forget About Video SEO
One of the fastest-growing forms of content online is video. With platforms like YouTube and Vimeo ranking high in search results, you’ll want to make sure your videos are optimized for SEO. The good news is that you don’t need to start from scratch. There are many ways you can optimize your video content for SEO.
You’ll want to include your keyword in your video title, as well as make that title descriptive and engaging. You can also add your keyword to your video description. This will help your video show up in video-specific search results.
For better video SEO, use high-quality images and videos, select high-traffic keywords, and create a captivating title. Additionally, use descriptive anchor text, have a balanced amount of external links, and include your website or blog URL in the description section.
Build Relationships With Readers
Building relationships with your audience is one of the most effective techniques to boost your search engine optimization (SEO). One method for accomplishing this goal is to routinely host online webinars at which industry professionals are invited to give presentations.
Your audience will be grateful that you took the time to arrange these events, and they will be pleased to come back to your site to watch the replays when they are available. For instance, if you operate a blog about marketing, you could ask marketing professionals to give their perspectives during a live webinar that you host.
Either you could video record the event and then upload the files to your website, or you could even invite your readers to participate in the event in real-time. After you’ve built up a following, you’ll notice that readers return to your site on a frequent basis to check out the new stuff you’ve added.
Don’t Neglect Desktop Users
Although traffic from mobile devices is growing, this does not indicate that desktop users have become extinct. You should optimize your website not just for people using desktop computers but also for people using mobile devices. This entails making use of font sizes that are larger and ensuring that your website loads swiftly and without difficulty.
You can even go as far as creating two completely distinct names for each page if you want to. One of them would be shorter and more concise, geared at mobile users, while the other would be slightly longer, with more information, and tailored for desktop users.
Conclusion
The process of SEO might be challenging at times, but it also has the potential to be incredibly rewarding. If you want more people to visit your website, you should make it as simple as possible for them to locate it and click on it. This will help you achieve your goal of having more people visit your site. You may boost your SEO by implementing these seven strategies, and you will quickly notice an increase in the number of visitors coming from search engines.