5 Ways To Improve Your Website SEO…
SEO.
…three little letters that hold so much power in the website universe. So, what the heck is it, and why does everyone care so much about it?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. In the simplest terms possible, SEO is all about how you can improve your website so that search engines, like Google, can easily find your website and rank it higher in their search results.
When search engines like Google rank your website higher in their search results, it puts your website in front of more people for free, meaning you don’t have to pay to be on the first page of those search results. This is called organic SEO and it’s what most people with any kind of strategic website are striving for.
Okay, so now that we know what it is and why we should care about it, what can we do to help improve the organic SEO on our websites?
Here are 5 ways you can improve your website SEO:
1. KEYWORDS
First things first, when it comes to SEO you must choose your keywords. Keywords are the words and phrases that people enter into search engines to find what they’re looking for.
Why are keywords important?
When you’re brand new, no one is going to be searching your business name on Google because, they simply just don’t know that you or your website exists yet. BUT, with keywords you can still show up in their search results and land yourself right in front of your ideal client if they happen to be typing those same keywords into Google.
To figure out your keywords, you need to think about what your ideal client’s would be searching in Google and then do some research to find out if those keywords are strong or not. You can use a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner to help you. A strong keyword will have a good amount of search volume but low competition.
Once you’ve got your keywords, incorporate them into the content for your website, and for SEO best practices, try to focus on just one keyword or phrase per page.
2. ADD PAGE TITLES
This is such an easy SEO element to add to your site, but it’s often overlooked! Page titles are used to describe the title of each page on your website. They show up on Google before the person searching visits your site. You can use this page title to catch their eye and hopefully get them to click on your site. Include your main keyword in your page titles!
3. ADD PAGE DESCRIPTIONS
Page descriptions are the little blurbs that shows up below your website’s link on Google. This description is important because it can make you stand out from all of the other websites that show up in the same search result. Don’t miss out on this SEO opportunity when you’re writing your description! Make sure to include your keywords, be informative and highlight the benefits of your service.
4. ADD ALT TEXT TO IMAGES
Adding alt text to your images gives search engines more information about the content on your page which makes it easier for them to crawl and rank your image or page properly. Alt text is also what displays when your image does not load due to internet speed or when screen-reading tools describe images to visually impaired website visitors. It’s important to be as descriptive as possible and you should try to include keywords where you can.
5. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AN SSL CERTIFICATE
This one is now an SEO must if you even want to think about ranking on Google.
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and it’s basically what keeps the link between a web server and a browser secure…meaning it’s a way to protect your website from hackers.
Having one is important for you, it’s important to your website visitors and it’s important to Google.
Google wants to be known as a trusted search engine, and in order to do that it can only show secure sites in its search results. It uses SSL certificates to determine whether or not a website is safe or not and actually ranks sites with them higher than sites without. Which means, if your site doesn’t have one, you might actually be penalised for it when it comes to your SEO results.
So there you have it, 5 ways you can improve your website SEO! I will also say, SEO is a complicated beast that’s constantly changing as the tech world evolves and algorithms change. It can be a pretty daunting subject to dive into, and one that anyone can easily get lost in.
If you’re ready for a new website, and aren’t sure where to start with SEO, we should chat! All of my websites are designed and built with basic integrated SEO to get you started, and all Squarespace sites come with a built in SSL certificate to keep your site safe, plus your Squarespace site can connect directly to Google Search Console so that Google can find you as soon as you launch.