Search engine optimization, quite simply, involves working on your website and it’s linking profile to enhance its ranking in the organic search results on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
By optimizing for keywords that your target audience is likely to use which search for information online, you’re likely to drive the right traffic to your website and probably also enhance your conversion rate.
Here are some of the proven tips to help improve clients SEO.
1. Create great navigation links
Focus on making your site users’ journey within your website design as seamless as possible. Your audience should not encounter any difficulty in finding the information they are searching for when registering, or when completing a purchase.
Search engine crawlers use these navigation links to crawl your site. Thus, if your site users navigate your site seamlessly, the chances are that search engine crawlers also navigate your site effectively. This increases chances of ranking well on Google.
2. Use a relevant and descriptive page copy
Whenever you search a particular term in search engines such as Google, you must have realized that the results always have a bolded title and a snippet of description just below the title. This is the first layer of marketing for businesses.
Use a relevant homepage title and a brief, relevant description of the products or services you provide.
3. Publish core content on your website
It’s wise to offer content that details the products or services you provide, how much should customers pay for these products and services, why they should trust your brand, and how they can reach you. Such content offers profound answers to the most critical questions that your audience may be asking.
4. List your site on local search engines and directories
Begin with giant industry players like Google My Business and Yelp. You should also get your business listed on local business and local government listings. These efforts increase the chances of your prospects finding your business.
5. Encourage your customers to leave reviews and testimonials
Reviews are important and allowed on your listings in directories and local search engines. Thus, when designing your website, remember to provide your site users an opportunity to leave them. That means they can give their genuine views about your contents or products and services on offer.
6. Create and maintain relevant social media platforms
Social media platforms are some of the online platforms where your audience can leave genuine regarding your products and the overall client service. There are thousands of people using social networks. It’s a great source of business referrals.
7. Use freebies
If you can create a great guide or a great story you can share with your audience, you can create a freebie and offer it to your site users. Consider publishing it on your websites, release it on the local news site, and mention it on your Facebook page. A good on-topic content offers your site a better chance of getting a better rank on the search engines.
8. Ensure your site is mobile-friendly
The use of mobile devices to assess information online and it’s time you get ahead in this game. Remember, SEO is more than making sure that your site adheres to all search engine requirements. SEO also involves ensuring that you deliver the best client service to all your customers.
9. Google Analytics is important
Setting up Google Analytics help you understand and track your site users. This tool gives you access to a vast array of client-specific data that can help you understand the biggest difference in traditional and digital marketing in terms of performance.
10. Use Google Webmaster Tools
These tools help you to understand how search engines are interacting with your website. Remember to verify your website with the Google Webmaster Tools. This will allow search engines to offer detailed information about your website including;
- Is Google crawling your website?
- How many web pages are being discovered by these crawlers?
- What internal links Google is discovering on your site?
- Is there external link pointed at your website?
These details can help you know when search engines are struggling to crawl your website.
11. Create XML Sitemap
The XML sitemap is simply a list of URLs on a website. Submitting your site’s XML sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools makes sure that you provide all the web pages active on your site. That means these pages have a head start when being discovered and indexed by search engines.
12. Site domain name resolution
Sometimes, search engines may get confused as they attempt to decipher whether http://example.com or http://www.example.com is the right page. Besides, your browser may not find the URL you requested on the server, and this leads to a number of issues including poor user experience. Therefore, it’s wise to implement 301 redirects particularly from the canonical (http://examples.com) to a non-canonical (http://www.website.com).
13. Interlinking is also helping
If you operate multiple websites or startups, ensure that all the sites link to each other. You can link from the blogroll, about page, footer links, and more. This is a quick win, and you can control the entire process.
14. Offline networking
It’s wise to get out and meet people probably during a local event and see if there is a startup you can help. Knowing people and businesses may end up opening great opportunities such as guest blogging, PR opportunities, article contribution, and more.
15. Get smart when choosing your domain
Most startups are notorious for selecting bizarre and wacky names and domains. However, you should be very smart about your business name and domain name choice. For instance, if you own a cake shop called Great Monkey, you could consider naming it Great Monkey Cakes for brand searches as well as keyword searches. While there are many aspects of SEO, you should focus on choosing the right domain name from the start.
16. Link your site to your social media profiles
Once you create your business profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more, remember to link these accounts to your website. Though you may not get a lot of SEO value from such profile links, these links may be picked up elsewhere such as Twitter directories.
Author’s Bio:
Catherine Park is a connector with Caffeinated who help businesses find their audience online. She loves working in the ever-changing world of digital and is fascinated by the role content plays in today’s marketing.
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