10 Steps to Improve SEO on Your Website
It’s difficult to run and maintain a business. You may have a steady stream of loyal existing customers, but we also need to make sure that we have a steady flow of new customers. Your website is the online front line of your business and thus, you need to make sure to take some steps to improve SEO on your website.
It’s challenging to keep your website up-to-date. And your SEO might need a significant update — perhaps you’ve never done much with it at all, thinking it’s too difficult or too costly.
Luckily you’re not alone. If you concentrate your actions and follow the steps outlined below, you can make a smart SEO plan that will improve things for you.
Below are some of the basic and achievable steps you can do on your own. Though this might not be the most crucial, these 10 Steps to Better SEO for Your Website will get you started.
1) Increasing Page Load Speed
One user experience metric Google focuses on is how quickly your pages load. Fast internet speeds have programmed people to seek details immediately, perhaps, people are impatient.
This is why the loading time on your site is important. If your load speed is too slow, this will be noticed by Google, and that will hurt your ranking. You know a sluggish website is affecting how the users interact with your site. Search engines don’t want to drive users into a poorly performing website.
So how slow is too slow? Data suggests that, if the page takes much longer than 3 seconds to load, 40% of visitors will leave the website.
Perhaps interestingly, 80 percent of those users won’t be back to that page. This is bad for your SEO ranking since it eventually kills traffic to your website.
On the flip side, of course, if your page loads quickly, people will continue to come back. The algorithm of Google understands the success of your site and will change the search ranking automatically.
2. Fundamental Step to Improve SEO: Research your keywords
Start by spending time in keyword research. The right keywords for your business will do wonders and will be the foundation of your SEO campaign. It’s one of the main steps to improve SEO on your website.
This might seem obvious but keep in mind that keywords play a significant role in strengthening the SEO ranking of your website. Make sure you have done your homework, set a keyword plan, and concentrate on content that’s important.
Do note that bombarding a keyword will negatively affect your ranking. Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing. Make sure it’s a natural part of your content. Therefore, write for humans, not algorithms.
Using keywords tips:
- Put them in your header tags
- Place keywords in image captions
- Use long-tail keywords
3) Content is still king!
Blogging is terrific for your business. It makes the search engines crawl your website consistently and it also helps with engaging visitors and generating leads.
Blogging helps improve SEO rankings for all of these factors. Also generating new, relevant and reliable content leads people to your site and gives them a reason to stay for a while on your pages.
The more time visitors spend on your pages the more search engines see value on your website.
If through email subscriptions and social media interaction you can set up a huge group of loyal followers, you can get heavy traffic to your website on a daily basis.
4) Ensure a Readable Site for Better SEO
You must have a readable material, in addition to the relevant content. When writing content, you must consider your audience.
If you want people to stay longer on your site write content that they can easily understand.
Stay away from using overly technical terms. Your content must be understandable to the majority. Give them material they can comprehend. Avoid confusing and complicated style.
You can use online tools to track the site’s readability. These will help you determine words that could be too long or hard for people to understand.
5) Treat Visitors with some Multimedia Experience
The material on your site should not only be written words. Attach multimedia pieces to your sites such as pictures, slideshows, videos, or audio. This can all enhance the experience of the visitor.
Your visitors don’t want to read a lengthy pure text article. You need to get their attention with other stuff like making them watch a video or listen to the audio. Furthermore, this improves retention as well as engagement.
Plus, it is something people like! About 70 percent of users love to watch a video explainer instead of reading a description of their query. Viewing something is much better than reading on it, isn’t it?
Also on your website, you can find a proper correlation between videos and other interactive outlets and their SEO ranking.
Such features will significantly improve the length of time that someone invests on your site, which in their analysis is something search engines are searching for.
6) Use Infographics
One element that people forget about at a multimedia site is infographics. It’s another important step to improve SEO on your website as it enhances user experience.
These elements of content stuffed with information actually stack up an enormous SEO punch for the reason that they can generate more backlinks and users.
Ensure that your infographics are of smart design and informative. Both are definitive. Too many website owners tend to disregard the content during their development. Weak content leads to poor interaction.
7) Consistency Leads to Better SEO
Google and other search engines don’t like inconsistency in your business listings online which can certainly affect your online presence. With that said, it is important to be precise and consistent with your business information like the spelling of your business name, complete contact details, physical address, etc.
For sure, a piece of wrong information about your business will not only annoy Google but your potential customers as well.
Furthermore, make sure you are using the same details on your website, social media accounts, and review sites or local directories.
Contact information is another trust factor Google and other search engines are looking for. Above all, when users on a site can’t locate a company’s contact information, neither can Google. That is an issue!
If you have no contact details, people won’t see you as a legitimate business. All of your contact information should be plain and clear for people to find.
8) Improve Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
The title and meta description, if done properly will allow searchers to click through. Yet keep it tight. Just notice that Google only allows you 65 characters to compose the title of your page. Improving SEO requires following Google’s guidelines, you know.
Tips in making click-worthy titles for better SEO:
- Start it with keywords – Yep, we’re impatient beings. People tend to read a few words before digging deep so make sure you’ll catch their attention immediately.
- Clear message – Simple, straightforward language helps the audience to quickly understand what your website is about.
Meta Description Tips:
The other aspect that you need to pay close attention to on SERP is the meta description. That is the section under the page title.
- Make them descriptive – Place the front-load keywords that are needed for the article. Use a formula by asking “What? Who? Why? Where? When? How?” It works well when composing descriptions.
- Unique – Your meta description must be different from your other page descriptions.
- Short and precise – Make sure your meta descriptions are160 characters or less.
9) Internal Linking to Improve SEO
Internal linking allows you to inform Google what your page is all about through the anchor text you are using. Anchor texts are the words that are hyperlinked on your pages. Whenever there is a link to a web page, Google identifies the words used and takes that as information about what’s on the site.
Additionally, internal links provide you a way to show Google and other search engines how your various pages are linked and direct people from one page to another. Preferably, you want your users to hang around in order to minimize a high bounce rate on your site, providing valuable internal links is a way to accomplish that.
10) Set Up a Google Business Page
Another step to improve SEO is Local SEO. It is important for many businesses that’s why you need to set up an account on Google Business. By doing so, you’ll be able to put information about your business like address, contact details, images, reviews, etc.
Google provides an information box on the right side of the Results page when searching for a company. It displays company name, contact number, hours, website, etc.
Now that you know how valuable SEO is, and where to get started, it’s time to move forward. Create more content. Find some cool videos. Do some podcasts. This is the journey of inbound marketing, and you’re ready to succeed!
Check out the SEO Trends That Will Matter to You in 2020.