Every CEO wants to see their website rank higher in the Google search engine and that’s what each of them will stress in their meetings. But that’s not all, they want to rank at the top for every keyword combination they can imagine! Now, one may well wonder what is the way to make a website rank higher? The answer is simply Search Engine Optimization (SEO), writes Neel Sinha, Founder, MyLnk.
Ranking a business website higher enhances its chances of gaining a lead that could ultimately turn into a new business sale. To rank, a website higher needs quite a few steps and does not happen overnight. Let’s figure out the five most common and impactful professional SEO tips that a CEO insists upon.
01. On-page Optimization / Off-page Optimization. All to do with preparing a website for ranking; on-page optimization refers to those measures that are taken directly from within the website helping to improve its position in the search rankings. Examples pertaining to this include content optimization, or improving meta description and title tags.
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The on-page SEO tips generally include:
- Optimized titles and descriptions,
- Proper URL Structures,
- User-friendly navigation (user sitemaps, etc.),
- Optimized internal links,
- Text formatting,
- Image optimization,
- User-friendly 404 pages,
- Fast loading pages,
- Mobile-optimized pages,
- Top quality fresh content,
- External links (no broken links or links to ‘bad’ sites), etc.
Off-page SEO refers to links and other signals. It involves building links of authority to a website and sending strong social media signals. Off-page SEO refers to techniques that can be used to improve the position of a website in the search engine results page (SERPs). It’s not only associated with link building but it is also to do with promotion methods – beyond website design.
Some of the most important off-page optimization techniques can include:
- Link Building,
- Social Media Marketing,
- Social Bookmarking, etc.
A high-quality useful website is more likely to have references, in other words, links, from other websites. It is more likely to have a presence on social media. Apart from that, it is more likely to be bookmarked and shared by users. A successful off-page SEO strategy benefits a website by ranking it higher in SERPs along with bringing in more traffic.
02. Quality Content Foundation and Keyword Rich Content for Website. One has seen the evolution of search engines to more intelligent ways of analyzing the relevance of text on a webpage. That makes content a big player as a ranking factor. Ensuring that each webpage stays relevant to a topic along with providing value to the readers is of utmost importance.
It has usually been observed that small businesses do not much understand how to target keywords on a webpage or a blog post. Content should read naturally, it shouldn’t be flooded with keywords. The primary keyword(s) need to be identified that one will be targeting for a page or website and then ensure that the identified keywords support the related phrases.
03. Build Quality Links. Having updated its algorithm, Google now strongly focuses on the quality of a website’s backlink profile. Building thousands of random links back to a website will no longer shoot up a site to the top of the search results. Therefore it is better to create links from authoritative resources that have quality content. Thought that might involve fewer links, yet one is bound to enjoy long term success.
The most effective off-page SEO method – link building basically builds external links to a website. It’s like gathering as many ‘votes’ as one can! This bypasses competitors and helps a website rank higher. The popular ways of link building include:
- Blog Directories: It’s something similar to yellow pages wherein each entry has a link pointing to a website.
- Forum Signatures: Commenting on forums, that includes a signature, can help to get a link back to the website.
- Article Directories: By publishing articles to article directories one can get a link/s back to their website.
- Shared Content Directories – Websites like hubpages and infobarrel allows to publish content. Further one could add a couple of links pointing to their websites.
- Link exchange schemes – Instead of trying to publish content you could get in touch with other webmasters and exchange links. In other words, I could link your website from mine and you could do the same.
One needs to bear in mind how Google is intelligently recognizing black hat techniques. With the introduction of their various algorithm releases like Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird; they have managed to solve problems that protect the search engine results from spammers.
04. Use Best Current Practices. SEO is and has always been a rapidly evolving area. Many techniques that were advised earlier may no longer be so much relevant or advisable to use in the current scenario. Gone are the days when the entire focus was on Google’s more-or-less universal search engine results pages; today the search results are personalized and localized. So it becomes all the more necessary for businesses to implement not only “regular” organic search, but also include segments such as video search and news search for their SEO. Some of the best current SEO practices for keywords, on-site content, links, and readability can be as seen below.
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Assigning one primary keyword per page on the website.
Using the primary keyword in the page title.
- Using the primary keyword in the page’s URL.
- Including the target keyword in the Meta description.
- Using the primary keyword in an image alt tag.
- Regularly publishing and refreshing content.
- Never stealing content from another website.
- Including images and graphics on the pages.
- Including links on each page of a website, but not too many.
- Fixing broken links on a website.
- Adding a website to relevant business directories.
- Linking the website on all social media profiles.
- Including company address in the footer of the website.
- Adding SSL certificate adds a layer of security and changes site URL from “HTTP” to “HTTPS.”
- Increasing the speed of the website.
- Using a responsive, mobile-friendly design.
- Creating a Google / Bing Webmasters account and submitting the sitemap.
- Tracking analytics and monitoring website activity.
In short, whether one is writing content for a website or preparing a new blog post, one should always design their content using the SEO best practices.
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05. Focus More on Visitors! SEO can be a great way to popularise a website, but it’s not the only slice of the marketing pie! So, it’s always advisable to not over-depend on SEO alone for the growth of a business. Companies come and go. However, it must be noted that the ones that perish are the ones that depend too much on SEO alone for their entire business growth. The surviving companies are the ones that have a solid approach and market in a number of ways – both online and offline.
Also, it has to be borne firmly in mind that SEO is not just confined to typing keywords in search engines. It has evolved further, as mentioned earlier, now more people have started using voice search. SEO is not a static process; it’s dynamic. One cannot afford to do it only once – it can leave one high and dry. A regular and continuous SEO process that focusses more on the website visitors is the only way to sustain at the top.
Conclusion. Apart from the above-discussed tips, there are other ways that include setting up a totally free Google My Business account, and which helps to get all of one’s business details uploaded enabling it to appear in local search results for queries specific to their area of operation.
However, the tips that have been discussed above are the most commonly professed ones coming from the CEO of a small business. To keep abreast of the latest trends in SEO can be quite a tedious task. One needs to beware of agencies that promise the earth, but there’s a genuine reason why it makes sense to engage a consultant or an SEO expert to do some or all of the SEO activities required for a business.