SEO otherwise known as search engine optimization is a fantastic tool we can use to help increase our “ranking” on search engines. It’s a process that maximizes the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that your placement is high on search engines when a particular keyword(s) are searched for. There are many ways in which SEO can be implemented and if you’re new to the world of optimizing your website then it can be a little daunting. Making sure enough traffic is passing through your website can be a difficult task, so it’s best to begin with sticking to the basics, and employ a professional when you need help.
Here are a few tips to make your website SEO-friendly.
URL
This is the uniform resource locator and is used as the address of any resource, whether that be a website or a file, on the internet. When it comes to making it SEO friendly it needs to be simple and to the point. Your URL has to be well structured and there are few things to remember when doing so. It has to be organized and readable by everyone, keep it simple, and ensure it is made up of words and not letters and symbols. Don’t use capitals as they will only confuse the reader, and more importantly, the search engine, so keep it simple. The most important aspect of SEO is to include your target word in the URL. For example, if you’re selling shoes and your website URL doesn’t include the word ‘shoes’ then you’re doing yourself an injustice. This is because search engines won’t relate your webpage to the product you’re selling and it will be more difficult for yourself to get ranked.
Make It Compatible
Websites are no longer just for PCs, there are a whole range of devices that can connect to the internet and a large number of consumers will be visiting your website from something other than a computer or laptop. This is the reason you need to make sure that your website is friendly to all devices that are used by the public, these include both IOS and Android for mobiles, tablets, games consoles, and televisions. Even when we do talk about computers, we have to make sure that our site is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh. You can consult with a good web design agency like Cude Design to get professional help. Ensuring that your website is compatible with multiple devices can help increase your search traffic, as search engines favour mobile-friendly websites. Having high traffic is important as it will give you a higher chance of people engaging with your website which in turn will increase the percentage of consumers that convert to customers. Ultimately making your website more profitable and more popular.
Social Media
A company’s social media pages have become synonymous with their website. Every business in their right mind will have a social media presence because it’s an incredible tool for advertising. However, it’s often overlooked that they are also brilliant for optimizing your company’s rankings on search engines by increasing traffic flow. When creating your site make sure you include all of your accounts as it will help your ranking and also show prospective customers that you are a personable, down to earth company.
Images
Yes, that’s right, you should be optimizing your images as well as your text. This is something that so many people forget to do which means you’ll be in a much better position if you remember. Think about your images carefully, as ones that are more relevant to your page will ultimately mean a better ranking. This also means placement on the page, make sure you’re placing images around paragraphs related to them. It’s also important to bear in mind the size of the pictures you are placing on your page, whilst you want them to look good, there’s a fine line between being perfect for the website and being so large it affects your loading time, this will unfortunately negatively affect your rankings. Unique pictures are also significantly better for your website’s ranking.
Content
Every website is going to need content or there isn’t much point in having one at all. When we talk about website content in regards to search engine optimization, we mean content that’s meaningful. Having unrelated or meaningless articles for the sake of content production isn’t going to help your ranking. It’s extremely important to bear in mind (and something that often gets overlooked) is avoiding duplicate content. Producing the same content on your website on more than one page might look like it increases the chances of getting a high ranking, but it doesn’t, the algorithms used are intelligent and will be able to decipher between original and duplicated content.
Internal Linking
Something you can do very easily is internally link your pages together. In the SEO world, having page authority is vital and will directly affect your ranking chances. Page authority is a metric that predicts the ability of a page to rank on search engines, this is done using a scale of 0-100. Check this definitive link building guide to learn more about crucial metrics and how to evaluate them correctly. Whilst this may seem confusing to begin with, you can start increasing your metric score by linking all your website pages together which will raise its authority and make your website easier to navigate.
Keywords
Using appropriate keywords is SEO 101. It’s where you use words that are related to ideas and topics that define your content. They can be singular words or phrases that help internet users find what they are looking for. Most of the time when someone uses a search engine they usually ask a question and if you can provide the answer or relate to the question with some keywords or phrases, then you have more of a chance of being ranked highly on the results page.
The journey to becoming an SEO friendly website may seem a daunting task at first, but once you get the hang of it, things will become easier. An essential factor to remember at the beginning is to make sure your website is clear and concise. You don’t want any nonsensical content and it must be easy to navigate. You can do this by internally linking your pages and having easily navigated menus. Using SEO is an essential tool for bringing in as much traffic and as much business to your website as possible so it’s best to get on board and gain an understanding as soon as you can.