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Today, SEO is more important than ever. The fact that businesses can reach a wide audience in seconds through search engines, and that there is no longer any need to wait for store hours to sell goods is amazing. With this comes the responsibility of SEO to rank better on SERPs. But how??
This post will teach you the basics of SEO, or search engine optimization, and how to apply it to your business website. SEO is an essential part of any business that wants to be competitive in the digital age.
Search engines like Google rank web pages according to their relevance for a particular search query and your website's SEO determines whether it appears in the top 10 results for these queries or not. The stakes are high, so don't let neglecting your site's SEO cost, and your customers. Keep reading for some excellent tips on how to optimize your site!
Some Tips & Tricks to Remember:
1. Do a Website Audit and Analysis:
The most important part of an SEO strategy is not the search engine optimization itself but knowing what aspects of your site need to be changed to improve your rankings. When you visit your site, it's easy to let yourself get distracted by all its bells and whistles and forget what's important -- getting your site to rank higher in search results.
To do this, check how your pages rank in Google by manually typing their URLs into Google's search bar. Try Yahoo! Search too, as they have their algorithm. This will give you a baseline idea of how you're ranking at the moment before you start any SEO work. Tackle your website's SEO by analyzing these results, looking for specific information like the following:
The number of backlinks it has
The number of referring domains that link to it
The number of text links pointing to it
These will be useful in learning what part(s) of your site needs improvement and should be a focus of your optimization strategy.
2. Fresh new content:
Update outdated content regularly with fresh new content. Include keywords in anchor text links. The anchor text should be a keyword that best describes the contents of the linked page. If you have content about Hawaii, for example, most pages should contain an anchor text link that reads "Hawaii," or "Hawaii vacations." Make sure that your site contains quality content and not just keywords. Quality content will help your search engine rankings in the long run. Put your most important keywords in the first paragraph of your web page. This will make it more likely for Google to rank you highly when someone searches on those keywords. Be sure the website has plenty of original content and new pages added regularly. Know what is already out there when it comes to search engine optimization and how you can apply these techniques to your website. Don't use the same methods everyone else is using. You want to stand out above your competitors. Put links to your site on other sites and directories where people will look for websites.
Note: Try to avoid updating content too often so that search engines don't view you as a spammer. Sites that update their content multiple times per day get viewed as spammers and are not likely to rank well in Google's search results.
3. W3C standards:
The website should be cross-browser compatible and validated against the W3C standards. Always keep in mind that usability is king. The better the site is to navigate, the more likely visitors will return over and over again.
4. Keywords Stuffing:
Don't place irrelevant keywords throughout your site for the sake of search engines. These will not help you in any way. Stuffing keywords in places that are not natural make reading difficult for humans. Google will penalize your site for this.
Note: Make sure that you have a contact page on your website which leads to actual contact information like an email or phone number. This will improve the user experience, which is a metric that search engines consider.
5. XML sitemap:
Make sure you have an XML sitemap and place it where people can easily see it. An XML sitemap is a list of all your web pages and links to them, which is what search engines use to find new content on your website. Research your niche and determine what keywords you want to rank for. Use these keywords as much as possible throughout your site to have as many pages ranking in the top 10 results as possible.
6. Backlink Submission:
Take advantage of free backlink submission services like Digg and StumbleUpon. These will help you create more incoming links to your site, an important factor that search engines will weigh when ranking it.
You should try getting as many links as possible from trusted sites with a high PR ranking and domain authority. These sites have a much greater chance of being indexed by search engines, which will help you rank higher on Google.
Note: Avoid linking to other low-ranking web pages, even if they are relevant to your business website. Doing so will only hurt your site's rankings in the long run. When using a blog or website, make sure that you do not use too many plugins. The more plugins that are active on the site, the greater the chance it will be flagged as a spamming site.
Conclusion:
The online world is more important now than ever. With businesses operating in global environments, and consumers able to connect with brands from anywhere in the world, it's more vital than ever that your business is found where your customers are searching for you. Measuring success is still just a matter of working harder and spending more money, but the one thing any business can do to set itself apart in today’s climate is to implement effective SEO on its digital properties.
SEO is an important part of a strong digital marketing strategy for every brand, big or small. The hard work it takes to get a site ranked well by search engines can help drive traffic and bring in potential new customers
Get Your Site Ranked on the First Page!
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