The 3 Secrets Of Successful SEO
Optimize your website to please the search engines today.
It’s the buzz phrase of the website world: “search engine optimization (SEO)”, and it’s something every business owner should get to know. Having a website is great, but what’s the use of it if no one can find it? Being found via search engines is a must and small businesses can’t afford to miss the digital train. To get you started, here are the secrets of how to SEO a website.
Search engines are a powerful tool for anyone who is looking for a service, product or information of any kind. Since 2010 consumer behaviour has changed dramatically, and many of your potential customers are now turning to the search engines to find your business. Research states that “most people surveyed were just as likely to turn to the internet, as they were to ask for personal recommendations about local businesses”. Moreover, when actively looking for a service, 85% of consumers turn to search engines. With this in mind, let’s get started on how you can boost your website’s SEO:
- Build a professional website that works.
First impressions do count. Your business’s website is a direct reflection of what you have to offer, so if it looks amateurish and homemade, what are the chances that a prospective new customer will trust you? On the other hand, a professionally designed, easy to navigate and modern website is sure to impress, giving off all of the right signals. The signs of trust, confidence and wow factor are like candy to a baby for your potential customers.
Not only does your website need to look great, it also needs to be structured in such a way, that Google’s bots find it appealing. It must be easy to navigate, have a sitemap (for Google to understand the website’s flow) and must contain the right information in the meta tags and have ideally constructed links. If this was a mouthful, let’s break it down:
Navigation: Have you come across websites where you are not sure of how to get from one page to the other, or encounter strange and confusing submenus, or pop ups that cover parts of the screen and you no longer can click on what’s behind? This is a poorly constructed website. You want your customers/readers to easily hop from one page to the other, finding what they are looking for with ease.
Sitemap: It’s a sort of path layout for Google to understand how your website fits together. Always have a clear roadmap and make it obvious how to get from A to B without problems.
Meta Tags: The invisible information which gives Google insight as to what each of your pages on your website is about. This helps Google determine relevance to searches.
Links: The links on your website should be optimized and to the point. For example, if your business sells cars, the link www.carbuisness.com/cars/porsche is a link of more value than www.carbusiness.com/products/cars/porsche. The fact that the word “products” is contained in the link dilutes the relevance to cars and associated keywords.
2. Craft your content carefully
Content is a massive factor in how to SEO a website. Search engines are paying more and more attention to content and the relevance of content to searches. Using keywords is great, but the page Google will list as a top result must also satisfy the actual search. Tricks are no longer sufficient; our content needs to be relevant. Not only must content be relevant to search engines, your viewers will also appreciate original thoughts, information they directly need and regular updates so that they feel your website is alive.
3. Build your links carefully
This is a tricky one, as in the past they were some shady tactics to boost website rankings by creating random links from other sites to yours. Search engines have become much more scrutinizing, ranking links in terms of quality and relevance. That is, they actually establish whether a backlink is genuine or not. Through consistent good work, you can contact bloggers, online magazines and websites in your industry to name a few ideas, and ask them if they would place a link to your website on theirs. You can always reciprocate. It is much better to have a few quality backlinks than many dubious ones. Just to clarify, search engines can blacklist your domain name if they catch you doing this so beware.
Scan your website to check out how well it performs on SEO today right here on the WestHost website.