There are many ways to optimize your website for search engines. Some of those methods are older and still are important. But there are new ways of thinking that need to be understood to get the most out of your online marketing.
There are different aspects to optimizing your website. These are different in nature and can be separated into different categories. Among some of these are page optimization, site structure, site performance, and mobile.
Page Optimization
This method consists of optimizing core keywords for certain keywords. Usually these are based on products or services. For example, if you are a contractor in Seattle you might specialize in kitchen remodels, bathrooms, and a few other services. So we usually separate each one of those services into individual pages and optimize for each keyword. Note: Some businesses focus too much on the exact phrase which is not how Google works anymore. With the Hummingbird update Google will try to figure out the meaning of the phrase and serve up different types on the search results page. Make sure your keywords on in these page elements:
- Page title - This is what you read in the tab of your browser
- URL - Your keywords should be in the link to the page and separated by a hyphen. For example this post has the keywords "internet marketing agency" http://blog.softwiredweb.com/internet-marketing-agency
- Meta description - Usually there's a place to put this short paragraph in your blog if you're using WordPress or some other system. This is what shows up on a search results page. https://www.google.com/search?q=softwtwired&oq=softwtwired&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.5507j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8#q=internet+marketing
- Headers - HTML markup for H1, H2, H3, ...etc. will highlight titles in your post.
- Alt text for images - Your keywords should be set in the alt text for an image.
- Links - Internal links to relevant posts in your own blog that have keywords. External links to other website that have posts the are related to the keywords you are using.
Site Structure
The overall structure of a website is important for search engines to be able to understand what the content of the website is about. Certain things like breadcrumbs help the bots to crawl the site effectively and get better indexing results. If it's hard to navigate for users it's going to be hard to navigate for search engines and you'll get less than optimal results.
Site Performance
How fast does your website load? If it takes more than 2 seconds you'll end up getting penalized because Google wants users to have a good experience. Waiting for pages to load is not a good experience and you'll end up losing visitors. There are many ways to speed up existing websites and this is one of the most overlooked optimization tasks.
Mobile
Your site must be optimized for mobile devices, period. 2015 was the year Google made a public statement that sites that aren't mobile optimized will get less preference over mobile websites. This isn't what used to be called a mobile version that just had links on the phone version. Each device such as tablets, phones, laptops, and desktops should all be designed for the user experience.
Summary
It's important to optimize your website for search engines to achieve the highest ranking possible for keywords. If you follow these guidlines for your posts and pages search engines will know what your content is about.
For a more detailed explanation and help with your internet marketing, give us a call 360-815-1995.
Let Us Know What You Thought about this Post.
Put your Comment Below.