1. Build a Mobile-Friendly Site
If you’re looking to be found on Google, your site should rank highly for searches done by mobile users. Since many people search for businesses via their smartphones, if your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you will get left behind. One of Google’s stated goals is to provide a search experience that works well whether you access it from a desktop computer or a smartphone. If you don’t have a responsive website, now might be a good time to start working on one—and ensure that your rankings reflect that change.
2. Create Original, Quality Content
The most overlooked factor of search engine optimization is content. If you don’t have quality content that is consistent and updated on a regular basis, then no matter how well your website is optimized for search engines, it won’t be enough to generate traffic and business for your company. The solution? Always ensure that you’re creating original and unique content.
3. Add Tools to Help People Share Your Content
Backlinks from other websites send a signal to search engines that your site is worth visiting. When you include tools that make it easy for people to share your content, they are more likely to do so. The easier it is for someone to share something they like, the more likely they will share it and you will get links back. This can help boost your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). You should add social sharing buttons so people can easily share your content with their followers on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other popular sites or directly embed an iframe code on your site so they can post links directly to their own blogs and website articles. This is a great way of getting free advertising and free traffic through shared links in a short amount of time.
4. Create Great Titles
If your title doesn’t get people interested in reading more, you can bet that it won’t be clicking on your link. People are really busy these days and have to watch out for their time. A bad title will have them scrolling past your post without a second glance. A good one will reel them in and make them want to see what you have to say. How do you write a great title? You must grab their attention by being specific (use numbers or statistics) and having an eye-catching word play that gets right to point of what they should expect when they click through.
5. Incorporate Links Into Your Content
Linking to other websites, articles, or pages on your own site is critical for search engine optimization. Google indexes incoming links in addition to content on a page, and ranking high in their listings comes from having a lot of incoming links (but not any old type of link will do). The quality of your content may well determine how many quality links you receive. In terms of quantity, aim for 10-20 relevant links per 1,000 words. Some experts suggest that more than 20 links per 1,000 words can actually work against you. For more details about linking and search engine optimization, check out Search Engine Watch.
6. Use Targeted Keywords
Every time you create a page for your website, ensure that you are adding in keywords related to that page. People searching online will be searching based on what they need and if they can find exactly what they want by reading your content, then they will stay on your site. Focus on their needs, not yours! Use Google Keyword Planner to see which words are searched most frequently. This is also a great way to find out how many people search for your industry or niche keyword phrases each month. This can help you figure out how much traffic you may receive from them on an annual basis as well.
7. Use Social Media (Share Buttons)
While it’s not considered organic traffic necessarily, social media can bring a lot of traffic to your website and is an important part of ranking well in search engines. Make sure you have share buttons on your website so that users can easily share your content with their networks. You should also integrate social media into your existing website, especially if you have a lot of followers on one or more networks.
8. Fix Broken Links on Your Site
Broken links can really have a negative impact on your website ranking. If you’re using Wordpress for your website, check to see if there are any broken links in your posts. Wordpress will show you which pages have broken links, and you can easily get rid of them. However, there are also thousands of plugins that can also help fix broken links on your site automatically. So if Wordpress is not an option for you, don’t panic—there are plenty of other ways to keep those ugly 404 error messages away from showing up on your site and harming its rankings (and brand reputation) online!
9. Understand How the Search Engines Work
If you don’t know how search engines work, then you’re doing your business a disservice. The basic idea is that people enter keywords into search engines in order to find websites on specific topics. If your site ranks for these terms, then you’ll get traffic from people who are interested in your niche. Make sure that your site has relevant content and is optimized to be found through SEO (search engine optimization). Improving your rankings will take time; but when it works, it can drive a lot of traffic and conversions—and thus revenue—to your business.
10. And Finally…Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics is Google’s traffic reporting software, which is a great way to track how many people visit your website, where they came from, how long they stayed, and more. Once you have Google Analytics installed on your site, you’ll get an overview of how many people are visiting. You can then use that information to optimize your site for search engines. The better optimized it is for search engines (SEO), the higher it will rank on search results pages. © 2022 Patrick M
