From websites promoting clothing items and food products to sites that want to provide information about entertainment and Slots Capital casino events, almost every business owner is aware that today, it’s vital to have a strong web presence where the company’s message will get out.
An internet site is comparable to a storefront window of the past – it shows potential customers which items or activities are available and how they can get those items or sign up to join the events.
Once a company’s website is created, the real work begins. That’s known as Search Engine Optimization – the process of drawing web traffic from free, natural, organic or editorial searches facilitated on the search engine. When you optimize your website, you acknowledge the algorithms used by the search engines to determine which sites should rank highest on their search engines, meaning, the sites that the majority of searchers will see first.
Search engines determine site rankings based on which sites offer the most quality information about a subject, which sites feature the keywords that searchers use when conducting their searches and which sites provide information in the most readable ways.
Businesses can’t ignore the importance of having the algorithms of the search engine in mind when creating their sites and they can’t minimize the importance of meeting continuing changes in search engine algorithms as time goes by.
There are plenty of companies that will optimize your website so that your site is fully optimized for the search engines but if you want to save money and maintain in-house control over your site, you can take care of much of the search engine optimization yourself. What do you need to do to optimize your website for SEO?
Keywords
Search engines rank sites based heavily on their content. In order to determine which site offers the best quality content, search engines measure which sites offer content with heavily searched-for keywords. So as you create new content, you want to make sure that you are including the most searched-for keywords as they relate to your content.
The most effective way to find the right keywords to add to your site’s content is to do keyword research. Some of the most frequently used, free, keyword research tools include Google Keyword Planner, Moz, and Ahrefs. Enter a phrase that describes your sites’ content into the keyword planner and you’ll receive a list of keywords that are frequently searched for by people who are looking for similar content.
For instance, if you have a site that displays your selection of different types of china teacups, you might enter “china teacups” into the keyword planner. The keyword planner will then give you a list of search terms which are used by real people searching for similar items – “antique china teacups”, “antique china”, “bone china teacups”, “English china teacups”, etc. The keyword planner will note which search terms are used most frequently and which are used less frequently.
Once you have those search terms in place, you have a good idea of which keywords to add to your content. Not only can you create a landing page which features those keywords but you can create sub-pages, each of which focuses on a different aspect of china tea cups and each of which highlights a different keyword.
So, under the heading “China Teacups” you might want to have pages about “Budget English China Teacups”, “Antique China Teacups in Collections Around the World,” etc. The more valuable content that you feature on your site, the more you will draw new views – viewers who may turn into customers.
Two additional tips about keywords:
- Make your keywords “long-tailed” meaning phrases of two and three words strung together. “Teacups” wouldn’t be a good keyword but “china teacups” or “antique china teacups” would be good.
- Add your main keywords to your website’s back-end – the behind-the-scenes area of your site that viewers don’t see but the search engine crawlers do read. The back-end keywords should match the keywords on your front-end, page by page.
Links
Your website should include internal links that link pages from within your website to each other as well as external authority links that link to outside websites as supportive sites. Search engines give better rankings to websites that have internal and external linking systems.
Internal links help search engines better understand what your page is about. They improve user experience by letting users more easily access pertinent information. They help build authority for the pages on your website and help improve your site’s credibility and trustworthiness. Internal links help drive organic traffic by steering guiding site visitors to click on more pages within a single session.
Search engines see external links as indicating that your site is authoritative, trustworthy and is a provider of expertise. They improve your website’s credibility and trustworthiness.
Back-End
If you have access to your back-end and know what you’re doing, you can take care of your back-end yourself. Do-it-yourself website-builders like Yoast, Weebly or Wix make it easy for a novice to edit the back-end so that search engines will “read” the inside information of your site – backend elements that tell the search engines more about the site’s inner workings.
There are a number of things that you can do to improve the back-end of your site, either you or a back-end expert. They include:
- Schema Markup – this HTML code is a “rich snippet” that helps the search engine more fully understand your page. There are schemas for different types of content – books, restaurants, events, travel, etc — that give a summary of the website or of a webpage in a short snippet.
- URL – pick a URL that has a keyword that reflects the site’s content. According to research, searchers often select the site that they want to click on based on information that they find in the URL. The URL should be readable and under 50 characters – as few nonsense letters, numbers and symbols as possible
- Mobile Friendly – make sure that your website is mobile friendly because more than 50% of searches now come from mobile devices. Use a responsive template, make sure that your images and content are optimized for lower-load time, keep a simple design and use large font. Navigational elements should be easy to click with a thumb or forefinger.
- Meta Description – the meta description is the short snippet that describes your site that is seen on the search engine listing. It shouldn’t be more than 160 characters and should reflect your site’s content. The better your meta description describes your site, the more people will click on it which, in turn, will drive more traffic to your site and increase your site’s ranking in the search engine.