When it comes to your website, there are a plethora of factors you have to consider. The design and layout, the branding, the products or services you want to offer, and even the way people can communicate with you.
A full “How to Build a Good Website” course would be ideal if you’re just starting out. However, there is another HUGE component that applies to your website and needs to be considered regardless of if your site is just being built or has been around for a while. That is the elusive component of SEO: Search Engine Optimization.
What is SEO?
SEO is an umbrella term for ways to make digital content appealing to search engines. When a search engine analyzes (or crawls) your website and finds credible, authoritative, and user-friendly content, it will consider ranking it higher within its search engine results. Similarly, if it finds unhelpful, unrelated, or non-user-friendly content, it will ding your page for providing a poor experience.
SEO is a digital marketing process designed to reward successful websites when they provide the best user experience, matched search intent and solutions to users quickly and accurately. While complex, it isn’t meant to be frustrating or competitive, simply motivating.
There are countless resources for how to optimize your website for SEO, but we want to help you understand 3 of the TOP ways to optimize your page according to us (even though there are, quite literally, hundreds of ways.)
3 Top Ways to Optimize Your Website for SEO
1. Use Keywords in the Right Places
Do you know what keywords people put into Google in order to find you? Perhaps you are a floral company. Someone might search, “Florist near me.” Perhaps you are a real estate agent. Someone might search, “Realtor in X town.” These keywords hold weight and value and ideally will lead the searcher to the intended results.
If you optimize your website content with keywords directly related to your brand and business offering, you are more likely to support search intent and rank higher in the search results. What does that mean for you? More traffic to your page.
The “right places” on your site include:
Your site title
Any headings
Your meta description
Throughout the body of your content
In alt tags and captions of your images
To learn more about how to best use keywords effectively, check out this helpful list of keyword optimization tips.
2. Provide Detailed Content
Nothing is worse than going to a website and NOT finding what you’re looking for because there is not enough information. A site that has too little content can leave a reader confused OR frustrated that they have to keep searching. On the flip side, a page that has plenty of information and keeps the reader on the page longer tells Google that the page is helpful and giving them the answers they came looking for.
From an SEO perspective, long-form content is more valuable and can get your website higher rankings. Of note: It’s not helpful to write content that just drags on and on. It needs to be important, relative content that stays on topic in order to be valuable.
Combining this step with powerful keywords throughout will help your site rank higher. Keep in mind that content should exist on all pages, but doesn’t have to be excessive on all pages. Pages on your site that simply don’t need a lot of text are okay to leave that way (ie. contact pages, licensing pages, etc.)
3. Acquire Backlinks
Backlinks are a large factor for SEO and refer to sites that are pointing to YOUR website through a hyperlink. Often, you have little to no control in who links to your site, but the more backlinks your site receives, the more credible search engines view your webpage.
If you are interested in improving your overall SEO of your website, consider making an effort to obtain more backlinks. This includes reaching out to sites that are related to yours and asking them to consider linking to your page *where applicable*. Good marketing etiquette would be to contact them via email or through their contact forms.
It is important to note that backlinks also provide a benefit to the "backlinker" as having external links (links that point outside of your own domain) also help with SEO.
Make sure when requesting a backlink from another site that you provide a suggested location for the backlink to your page and include the anchor text you desire. Anchor text is the exact words that are used in the hyperlink. Ideally, the anchor text would include a main keyword someone would use to get to your page (ie. “Denver florist” or “Female realtor in Denver”.)
Lastly, remember that you’re asking a favor from them. When you compose an email to a member of their company, politely explain who you are and what you’re looking for. If your request improves their page experience, they will hopefully be happy to help you.
SEO has previously been seen as intense and technical, but it doesn’t have to be! Your website’s success can drastically change when applying these tips.
For even more SEO strategies, make sure to check out this incredibly resourceful article, “101 Quick & Actionable Tips to Improve Your SEO.”
Good luck!