by You want people to find your business online. Who doesn’t, right? The trick to making this happen – and driving real results once a potential customer lands on your website – is making sure your website is easily discovered.
To do that, you need to prioritize search engine optimization, or SEO. With an effective SEO strategy, your business or organization has a much higher chance of leading people to your site.
From there, leads can convert into customers. It’s just getting people to that point that’s the trick.
And that’s where these basic website SEO tips will come in handy.
People use SEO – a lot
SEO is definitely not something you want to ignore when it comes to designing your business’s website. In fact, not using SEO to your advantage could be devastating.
That’s because search engines and SEO are responsible for a very large bulk of website traffic. According to a list of search engine optimization statistics compiled by Ahrefs, 68% of online experience start with search engines – and more than half of all website traffic comes from organic searches that people perform on those search engines.
What’s even more interesting from a business perspective is that leads driven to websites by SEO have a 14.6% close rate.
Needless to say, better SEO is just better business. Now, here are tips for how to use SEO to achieve results for your business.
1. Identify and use the right keywords
Search engine optimization is built on keywords and keyphrases. When somebody enters a search into Google or any other search engine, they are using specific words and phrases with hopes that the service will point them toward the information they want.
To be at the top of those search results, your website needs to prioritize similar words and phrases. If the content on your website effectively uses those same or similar keywords and keyphrases, then you’ve got a better chance at having your website rank toward the top of search results.
But you need to identify those keywords first. The goal is to prioritize keywords that either mirror those that potential searchers will use or are relevant to their searches. The trick here is to try to get in the minds of your target audience. Think about what someone looking for your product or service might search for online and what words or phrases they might use.
2. Publish content using those keywords
Once you have identified the right keywords, then you need to start using those words and phrases in your website content. This is everything from your website URL, page titles, headings and other copy found on the website.
One easy way to make sure you are using these keywords is to write blog posts for your website. Blog posts allow you to build up a solid base of relevant content that will show up in search results.
Plus, search engines love not only relevant content, but also quality content that has been updated regularly. A blog with regularly published, high-quality posts is perfect for this.
3. Use evergreen content
While blog posts are great for publishing timely or more time-sensitive content, you will also want to develop posts and pages with what is known as evergreen content.
With evergreen content, the idea is to aim for content that users will always need or always be searching for. This is the information that people will return to your website for again and again.
Ideas for evergreen content Think of common problems that your product or service solves. Practical advice works well when thinking about how to create evergreen content.
4. Speed up your website
While search engines love quality content, they also love content that is delivered on websites that load at high speeds. A study from Neil Patel shows that web pages in the top five results typically load faster than results below that point. So, it’s apparent that Google cares about speed.
You can get an idea of load times for pages on your websites using free tools like Google’s Page Speed Insights. This will also give you recommendations for how to help a slow page load faster.
As for specific tips, there are several ways that anybody can speed up their business’s website. Those methods include decreasing image file sizes before uploading them (also known as image optimization) and enabling browser caching.
5. Use alt texts to describe uploaded images
While we are on the topic of pictures, SEO performance will be improved not only by optimizing images for size, but also by using alt text.
Alt text, which is short for alternative text, adds text descriptions of the image that can be read by users who use screen readers due to visual impairments. Effective alt text accurately describes what is in the picture so the screen reader can share an accurate depiction of what other users would see.
But alt text can be helpful for SEO, too, especially if the photos you are using can be described with the specific keywords and keyphrases that you are trying to rank highly for on search engine results.
6. Have a mobile responsive website
Search engines prioritize websites that load quickly and look great on any device or screen size. That means that to get better rankings, you need to have a website that is mobile responsive.
Mobile responsive means the design of your website adjusts based on screen size so that it is still easily readable and navigable no matter the device that’s used to visit the site. Content needs to be visible without either zooming in or out or scrolling left or right.
Emagine specializes in SEO strategy
We know the internet inside and out here at Emagine. The SEO strategies we implement for our clients are deeply connected to many of our other marketing services, including web design, e-commerce, email marketing, social media marketing and much more. This is because effective SEO is so critical to making sure you’re getting noticed by potential customers.
We’re ready to put our expertise to work for your business. Reach out to us today for a free consultation to see how we can put all our marketing skills to work for you.
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