How much traffic does your website receive? Is it meeting pace with your expectations? Are your posts getting enough clicks and views? These are questions that every entrepreneur should be asking themselves. If your website is failing to meet your traffic and return expectations, it may be because you have not properly performed Search Engine Optimization on your site or your written content. This article is here to walk you through quick tips and tricks that can help you get your website optimized and up to date in no time. This helps you create higher quality content and to get it in front of more people than ever before.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process by which your clean up, configure, and improve your content so that it meets search engine algorithm standards and reaches its maximum user friendliness. SEO can seem daunting at first, but once the gist of it is learned, it becomes a quick and effective way to produce the highest quality content that your business has to offer. The best part is that there are many free (or cheap) tools built into most major website hosting platforms that will guide you through optimizing every individual piece of content you have to offer. SEO has never been easier, and this article is here to help you make sense of just how painless and easy a process it can be for your website.
Keywords
Keywording and keywords are one of the first steps that most people think of when it comes to SEO. Keywords, repeated and interspersed throughout an article can help the reader identify its main subjects, ideas, and topics. Keywords also help search engines to sort and categorize content across many different websites. Keywords help associate your content with similar content and associated products, services, or tools. Keywords should be short, easy to remember words or phrases that are repeated throughout your article or webpage. It is important to leave space between keywords as too many of the same words and phrases in a short block of text can cause your website to be flagged by both the reader and the algorithms.
Internal Linking
Internal linking is a terrific, organic way to keep readers invested in your website and what you have to say. The more articles, posts, and pages you have, the more opportunities you have to layer your content with references and links to additional content that you have made available. This helps to establish credibility with you and your reading audience, letting them know that you have a lot to say and to offer on a variety of related subjects. This also builds credibility with search engine algorithms, identifying your website as diverse and helping to collect various keywords and search terms that can be associated with your business.
External Linking
External linking is another great way to build credibility. While it doesn’t link to additional pages that you have available, it helps by linking to related information that can either confirm what you are saying or provide additional information over. This is also a great way to link to partnering organizations, businesses, or services that you do not offer inhouse.
Titles
Titling your articles and posts is equally as important as keywording your content. An appropriate title establishes the main idea of a post or article while being concise. Short and sweet are good adjectives to think of when creating your title. Titles that are too long can be difficult to remember and will pass the appropriated length that most search engines will give your space on a search page. However, it is also important not to be too short. One-word titles, especially those that cover generic topics, will result in your webpage getting lost in the mix. A good title is typically between three to ten words and helps clue your audience into the topic just by what it says.
Variety
Search Engine Algorithms and website visitors like to see variety. This means that if your website is churning out blogs on the same topic every week or only promoting the same products and services, you will be docked for it. The best way to get your website or business to the top of the search engine rankings overall is to rank for a variety of categories, subjects, and search terms. The more topics related to your business that you can speak on creates greater avenues for new customers and readers to find your website, to engage with it, and to eventually enter your sales funnel.
Credibility
Do you know what you are talking about? Credibility is a major issue on the internet. Many people put out misinformation, and many others misspeak without realizing their error. If you want to maintain a brand standard that is high quality, you need to make sure that you are speaking credibly. External linking, as discussed above, is a great place to start. Link to sources that can back up what you are saying. Another great way is to find a place on your website to list what makes you a credible source. Where did you study? What topics do you consider yourself an expert on? How long have you been in business? External linking is great for building credibility with search engines, but this extra touch can help create that trust between your business and its website visitors.
Maintenance
The most important step in Search Engine Optimization is to understand that the process is never done. Your new content will always need to be optimized and as algorithms change, sources become outdated, and links disappear, your existing content will need a touch up now and again. Make sure that you are monitoring your SEO scores and taking the time to improve older content when needed.
Use the Tools
SEO can be daunting, scary even, but it isn’t a process that should cause you major headaches. These SEO Quick Tips can help you get your search engine optimization process up and running in a flash. Make sure to take advantage of the tools at your disposal and get your website to the top of the rankings today.