It doesn’t matter if you have a beautifully rendered website or an impressive portfolio, you won’t get very far if you don’t have enough SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The thing is, Google, Yahoo, and Bing are extremely objective when it comes to things like sitemaps, alt tags, and keywords – just to name a few. Understanding the terminology isn’t that important, but understanding how to improve your SEO is.
And the good news is that you don’t need a digital marketing company or an SEO consultant to get started. In this article we will teach you the 10 main factors that you should pay attention to.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
SEO is the process in which traffic to your website is improved from search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing through organic or algorithmic search engine search results. The higher a website appears in search results, the greater the number of visitors the page will receive from the search engine.
There are several methods to improve the ranking of your pages without submitting to the paid schemes offered by search engines. Listed below, and in no particular order, are 10 that we believe are absolutely vital! See also: Creation of professional websites price.
1. Page Titles
The title tag is used by search engines to display a page in search results, as well as appearing at the top of the browser. These tags tell users and search spiders what your page is about. Google only displays between 50 – 60 characters in your title tags, so it’s important to keep descriptions short, catchy and relevant. Keywords and page topics should appear at the front.
2. Keywords
Keyword placement throughout your website is perhaps one of the most important SEO tactics. It’s helpful to consider how someone would search for information about the specific service or product you’re offering, as the keywords you use are likely the keywords you want to use.
BUT make sure you don’t add a crazy amount of keywords, especially if they are unrelated, as this could get your site flagged as spam. Search engine spiders are programmed to ignore “keyword stuffing.”
3. ALT tags
Every image and video you have on your website can have descriptive words added to your brand. These are known as alternative text descriptions. These descriptions allow search engines to find your page using the keywords found in your image and video descriptions, as well as the usual text throughout your site. Thus increasing the opportunities that your website finds, which consequently increases your page ranking.
4. Sitemaps
A sitemap – a page specifically listing and linking to all of the other main pages on your site – allows search spiders to find pages quickly and with the most relevance to the search in question. Therefore, each page is easier to find for both spiders and users and can be reached with significantly fewer clicks.
5. Mobile website
‘With almost 70% of organic traffic coming from mobile devices in 2019’, it’s not surprising that websites with a mobile-friendly interface rank higher in Google searches. Ultimately, Google is trying to provide the best user experience – so the better the user experience on your website, the better it will rank on Google.
6. Don’t use Flash
Many small businesses like to run their websites using Flash as it is easy to start and is quite inexpensive. However, Google always ranks Flash sites lower than sites running on alternative platforms – partially because you can’t link to an individual page. Switching a Flash-based website to WordPress will massively increase your search engine rankings.
7. Update content regularly
I’m sure this is something you would do regularly – but even so, it’s absolutely necessary! Regularly updated content is seen as one of the best indicators of a website’s relevance. Be sure to keep it updated.
8. URL Structure
A URL is one of the first things a search engine uses to determine a page rank, so it’s vital to make them easy for spiders to search. This can be done by keeping URLs short (which also improves user experience), keeping them relevant to the page’s topic and keywords, and ensuring that URLs help categorize the site’s pages.
9. Create natural links
Another key ranking factor in Google’s algorithm is the number of quality, organic internal links to your website. This works because Google ranks your site’s trustworthiness and relevance partially as a result of how many times it has been recommended by others. Therefore, it is important to monitor how these links are growing.
10. Monitor your progress
You won’t know if all your SEO hard work is paying off unless you track your search rankings. Keep an eye on your page ranking through tools like Alexa and the Google toolbar. Additionally, it’s important to check your referral log so you can see how visitors are getting to your site and the search terms they’re using to get there.
We hope you find this post useful.