How Can I Do SEO for My Website? 7 Top Tips and Tricks
SEO is Search Engine Optimization, and if you have a website, you need great SEO. Your website is one out of 1.5 billion on the World Wide Web. Excellent SEO is one way of helping your site stand out in the crowd.
If you’ve got a website, chances are you’ve heard the term SEO often and loud. Don’t feel bad if you still don’t understand it. SEO is not an obvious or easy element to your website.
Are you wondering, “How can I do SEO for my website?” You’ve come to the right place. Keep reading for seven top tips and tricks for website SEO.
1. Choose a Relevant Domain Name
A search engine looks at your domain name (URL) in an attempt to understand your business for results-page ranking. If your domain name mirrors your business, that’s an advantage.
If you can’t get your exact business name, try getting something that reflects your type of business. Be careful about odd spelling or adding only an “s” to get the site you want. You don’t want to accidentally drive traffic to someone else’s website.
2. Understand and Use Keywords
Keywords are the words people use to find your website. It’s easy because you know the basic words people are using. If you’re selling widgets, your customers search using the keyword “widget.”
It’s only complicated because sometimes your customers use search words that you’re not thinking about. Do a brainstorming session and think about all the words customers might use when doing an internet search for your product.
Don’t stop at words. Include long-tail keywords too. Long-tail keywords are keyword phrases.
These phrases are good because they allow you to narrow down the search. If you sell furniture, then you’ve got a lot of competitors vying for the top spot in the keyword “furniture.” Narrow it down to the type of furniture you sell, such as “post-modern furniture.”
Once you know which keywords to use, sprinkle them throughout your website. They’re especially useful on a blog if you keep your blog up to date.
Never “overstuff” keywords. Google penalizes sites that use too many keywords in an unnatural manner.
3. Titles and Descriptions
You can create a unique description and title for every page of your website. These are short and describe your business. Try and use some keywords in your titles and descriptions.
The titles and descriptions don’t show up on your webpage, but they do show up for the search engines. The SEO title is the sentence that shows up under your site name in a search.
4. Create Relevant Content
Using relevant keywords is crucial, but they won’t mean much if the rest of your content doesn’t match the keywords. When someone searches for your site and then clicks on a link to get there, they want a service or product that matches the keywords.
Google ranks your site high in search results if your page satisfies the intent of the people searching. Take a look at the web pages rating the highest in the keywords you’ve chosen.
Notice whether the websites are informational, navigational, or transactional. Informational pages are for people looking to learn something about a topic.
Navigational pages help someone find a specific website, like the nearest airport. Transactional pages are for buying a specific type of product.
Notice which types of pages are coming up first in the results from a search. Are the results like your website? You can adjust your content if it’s appropriate or find keywords that are more relevant to the content on your site.
Creating a constant flow of relevant content helps you rank higher with Google and other search engines. A blog is one of the best places for putting new content. Create blog posts that offer value to your potential customers.
5. Use Alt Tags With Your Images
Use an alt tag for each of your images. This is a short descriptive phrase for every image on your website. This is the only way a search engine can identify your images with accuracy.
An image of a big chunk of butter might look like a chunk of cheese to a search engine. If your product is butter, you don’t want the search engines misidentifying it as cheese.
If you’re using WordPress, you’ll see a field for the Alternative Text within the image editor.
6. Make Sure Your Site Loads Fast
If your site loads slowly, visitors won’t stay. Think of the last time you landed on a page that was full of pop-up boxes and ads.
You know the site isn’t going to load fast, and you don’t want to see all the junk. What did you do? You left before the site even finished loading.
Studies show that 40% of customers leave a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. When visitors leave your site without taking any actions, that’s the bounce rate. Aim for a low bounce rate.
7. Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly
Did you know that 81% of Americans own smartphones? It’s crucial that your website is mobile-friendly. If it isn’t optimized for mobile, you’ll lose a lot of customers before they even engage with the site.
You can test your site on Google’s mobile-friendly page. Enter your URL in the box, and Google tells you if your site works in the mobile environment.
How Can I Do SEO?
Now you have an answer to the question, “How can I do SEO?” Start with a good domain name.
Take time to look at the most used keywords for your business niche. Use them in a natural fashion throughout the site, including in page titles and descriptions.
Create relevant and valuable content that’s updated regularly. The best way is through a blog with high-quality images. Don’t forget the alt tag on your images.
Make sure your site loads fast and is mobile-friendly. If you follow these tips, you’re sure to see a bump in your page rankings. SEO isn’t hard, but it’s involved and often time-consuming.
Are you in the Scottsdale area? Are you overwhelmed by SEO? Call us for help!
