Every business’ dream is to have a good rank on search engines without spending too much money. With a bit of practice, it is possible with Search Engine Optimisation. Today we wanted to help you improve your search engine ranking with 6 main steps to follow.
Step 1 : Find keywords that match your business
You first have to determine the keywords that your potential clients type on search engines when they are looking for your kind of products or services. In fact, keywords represent the link between your business and your potential clients.
As it is not always easy to find the perfect keywords that match with your products or services, some free tools exist to help you like Google Keyword Planner or Termexplorer
Step 2 : Build content from your keywords
Now that you have found your keywords, it’s time to use them properly. For example if you provide Boat tours on a river and you don’t mention the “river cruise” keyword in your introduction page, there is little chance that Google registers your page for this keyword. Indeed, search engines analyse all of your pages so you will have to incorporate all your keywords on your website content. Plus, don’t forget to provide fresh and up-to-date content – Search engines love fresh content.
Step 3 : Incorporate keywords throughout your pages
We don’t really see it, but for a well-ranked website, keywords are everywhere, especially in headings, links between pages and alternative text used on images.
Firstly, heading tags (also called H1 tags) are essential because they allow search engines to understand what is the topic of your page. One page should only contain one H1 tag to avoid any confusion from viewers and search engines. In addition, this heading should contain specific keywords that you’re targeting for that page.
Then, images can help you improve your visibility in search engines. Search engines cannot understand the graphics within the images on your website, you must describe what the image represents using alternative text (Alt Text). The SEO optimization for images starts by naming the image files properly. Change the original “DSC1258.jpg” to a more descriptive name : “our-boat-river-cruise”. Then, the Alt text will allow you to display a description of the photo if the image can’t be displayed on the customer’s device.
Step 4 : Choose relevant titles for your pages
Your pages titles are far from insignificant. Indeed, META titles and META description are a real issue because they are the first thing people see when your website is displayed in the search results. Each time you create a new page, it is important to choose a relevant title that will explain your business in only a few words because what is obvious to you might not be to your potential customers.
To sum up, the best practice would be to put your business’ name with one of your major keywords in your page title, and then to write a short description of what you provide with other major keywords.
Step 5 : Build a URL structure that makes sense
Another great place to add keywords is within your URL, this helps search engines to understand the theme of your page. Indeed, adding keywords in your URL will also make it more user-friendly. It will be more effective to put keywords of your blog posts in your URL instead of naming them genericly like “www.website.com/blog-1”. This relevant URL will have two advantages : make your page easily recognizable for people, but also for search engines which will index your pages.
Step 6 : Build backlinks to improve your online visibility
Backlinks are links from other websites. They are essential because they improve your website visibility. Search engines will give more credit to websites with high quality backlinks which will lead to a better rank on search engines. You can create these back links by allowing your audience to share your content on social media or by sharing it yourself on your own social media channels. Your content must be relevant and interesting to encourage people to share it.
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— OSD Digital Agency (@OSDDigital) May 12, 2016
To sum up, SEO needs a lot of meticulous work but if it’s well done, your website will benefit from improved visibility and better ranking in search engines. If you want to know more about SEO, check out www.digitalmarketing.ie
