Simply having a well-designed website won’t drive the necessary traffic to keep your business afloat. Search engine optimization practices are very important when it comes to attracting new visitors and converting them into leads and sales. This is due to the fact that the average consumer uses search engines to look for anything ranging from a product or a service, to contact or event information to coffee shops and restaurants nearby. And for your website to be displayed in the top search results, you should definitely consider optimizing it using the following methods.
1. Post unique and relevant content
Providing high-quality content on your website is very important, as useful information attracts visitors and invites webmasters to link their content to your website. Make sure your content is information-rich and helpful and that it accurately describes your particular topic. You should ask yourself, what words would an average user type in order to reach your page and use them strategically on your website. Have in mind that by simply adding a bunch of keywords into some random piece of text, you risk getting down ranked or even completely omitted from the search results.
2. Using long-tailed keywords
Over the last couple of years, the focus of search engine’s algorithm started to drift away from specific, individual keywords and started favoring longer queries, or what the industry calls long-tailed keywords. Keywords are rather generic in nature and don’t reveal the actual intent behind the search, while queries have a clear and concise intent behind them. The only downside is that long-tailed keywords don’t generate as much traffic as head keywords, however, what they lack in quality they compensate with quantity by allowing marketers to cover more variations of a single search phrase.
3. Use actionable keywords for metadata optimization
Although long-tailed keywords can be used to optimize content, users still need a little persuasion to actually click on your website out of all results. In order to ensure that a user will click on your page, you have to make sure that you are using the most searched queries in your specific niche and optimize your metadata according to those queries. Furthermore, you should make the meta descriptions and title tags compelling and more importantly relevant and try to use short sentences and focus on engaging the search users.
4. Use local pages to attract local consumers
One of the best ways to perform well in local results is to claim your company business in local listings. These include Google My Business, Google’s Local Places, various local directories and review websites. Granted, most business owners tend to avoid review sites due to the fact that they could potentially get a negative review. However, customers place greater value in an honest review and even if you don’t add a local listing, customers can still use their social media platforms to voice their concerns. Another excellent way to engage local customers is to use neighborhood-specific keywords, just make sure you do your research before committing your time and resources.
5. Constantly work on improving the user experience
One of the greatest impacts UX, or user experience has on search engine optimization is the fact that it increases organic distribution and sharing of your pages. Elements that you should consider when working on improving user experience include page layout, high-quality content, simple and intuitive navigation, using breadcrumbs, page loading speed and even HTML sitemaps. Avoid duplicate content or if you do have different pages with pretty much the same content, make sure you only index one of them so you don’t get penalized by Google.
6. Don’t forget to create mobile landing pages
Google’s search algorithm has gone through many changes and updates, however, the latest one is aimed at mobile users. As more than half of all internet traffic is not coming from mobile devices, catering to the needs of mobile users has become imperative for improving SEO. As mobile pages have a different layout than desktop pages, it only natural to use the same approach in your landing page design.
7. Spread your outreach using social media
Social media is a vital part of any decent SEO strategy. Both Google+ and YouTube are both provide content and act as a social platform at the same time, a fact that should end the “whether social media impacts SEO” discussion. Create a voice for your brand and you can use it to answer various customer queries, network with prospective customers and maintain your social following. While it’s highly unlikely that Facebook and Twitter posts will ever be ranked #1 on Google, they are treated like all other pages in Google’s index. This means that Google will serve Facebook and Twitter related posts in their search results, as long as they’re able to crawl through them.
Final Words
There’s more to SEO than simply posting vague, keyword-stuffed content every now and then. It requires an entire strategy which needs to be properly devised and adequately implemented. Poorly executed SEO campaign can result in your website getting down ranked or even removed from the search results completely. However, a properly executed SEO campaign is sure to bring your website the much-needed traffic and secure your ranking position at the very top of the results, no matter how users structure their specific query.
Author Bio Sam Cyrus is CEO and co-founder of GWM, a Digital Marketing agency from Australia. Sam is also a creative writer and likes to share his insights on entrepreneurship, business, online marketing, SEO and social media. He currently collaborates with Nirmal Web Design.