SEO can be a confusing topic, especially when in today’s society so much importance is placed upon it. It is drummed into business owners that it is vital that they make their website SEO friendly, but the majority of the time people do not fully understand what this means.
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the process of generating traffic to your website from natural search results when people have used a search engine. The more SEO friendly a website is, the more visible it will be, which means being placed higher up in a search engine’s rankings. As the ultimate goal of all websites is to have as many people view it as possible, this is a pretty important element.
It is a fact that the top 5 results that are shown on Google after a search get 75% of the clicks, anything below this is drastically lower, with results on following pages getting barely any clicks at all. There are two different types of SEO, on page and off page. On page SEO is internal, and for a business to increase their traffic, there needs to be a constant revision of their own website and its content. Off page is an external type of SEO and relies on other websites and blogs to include links or references to their website in the hope that people will find their website through these other channels.
There are many things that a company can do to increase their SEO, many of which are very simple and can be achieved without too much work or money invested into it. One of the most important ways to keep a website at the top of the rankings is to produce fresh content constantly. A website that remains unchanged will slowly find itself falling down the rankings. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is to include a blog on the website with new posts added to it regularly, this way there is always new content on the website, and search engines will recognize this.
Another good way to help increase a website’s SEO is to do some keyword research. Once you know the sort of terms that an average user searches for to find a similar business, then it is important to use these keywords regularly throughout the website so that it shows up repeatedly in the search engine. This is especially effective when the keywords are used in page titles, menus, and headings.
Surprisingly, the speed of a website is very important and plays a big part in how SEO friendly a website is. People expect a website to load almost instantly, and if it fails to do this, then people will get bored and go and find a site that is a bit more up to speed. Checking a website’s speed regularly should be a step that businesses consider.
These are only a few of the ways that businesses can make their site more SEO friendly, and hopefully, in the long run, improve their business.
Infographic by SEO Jury