Search engine optimization isn’t about bombarding your site with thousands of backlinks in the shortest possible time but is about building a quality, search engine, and people friendly website that over-delivers value to your prospects. Of course, it may be hard to produce a lot of content pages in some industries but for most, specially the competitive ones, it’s just impractical to expect a 5 page website to top the search engine rankings.
1) Plant geographic indications:
Welcome to Venice! Yes, we’re still in Winnipeg! Venice is a local algorithm update that mixed organic and local search results in one search results page to help local businesses get a higher chance of ranking on the searches with local intent. Aside from using local keywords, you can also plant kml files on your website’s root domain, use geotagged imageds and use rich snippets containing you company name, address and phone number on your website to help Google determine that your site is in fact a local website.
2) Say No to Flash-based Websites:
Above, I wrote that you should help Google read your website. If your stunning website is flash-based, you will not like this: Google can’t read FLASH!
3) Target the right keywords:
It’s surprising that right up to now, very few local business websites actually target the right keywords on their website pages. Your potential customers use “keywords” every time they try to search for your business online. Using the right keywords on your website lets Google know what your website is all about, yet a lot of small business websites don’t use the words their prospects use to find businesses similar to theirs and wonder why their websites’ aren’t bringing them leads.
4) Invest in Content:
Content can come in a lot of various forms. It can refer to videos, images, infographics, etc. but the most basic form of content are text articles focused on the keywords that your potential customers are typing on the search field to find your business. The truth is, Google can’t read videos and images (yet), that’s why it’s so important to build your website around something that’s highly readable by Google and other search engines. Some people will tell you that searches no longer read website content pages but the truth is searchers actually do; sure they won’t read the full one thousand word article that you painstakingly crafted into a masterpiece but your content will help them find you on the search results. This is otherwise called: Content Marketing.
5) Don’t Trick Google, Rank Slow and Rank Long Term:
If you’re paying an online marketing company to help you be visible on the search results for your business’ target keywords, you might be frustrated in the first few months because you think you’re not getting results. This is because there’s a process to a quality search engine optimization campaign which will benefit your company in the many years to come. Trying to rank FAST will only get your site dinged and when Google decides to ban your site, all your hopes of landing on the first page of the search results page are shattered. Rank slow and keep away from SEOs who promise immediate gratification.
Focus instead on quality and please, please, don’t bombard Google with automated, spammy backlinks. A solid SEO strategy builds the right foundation to help you dominate the search results in the many years to come whereas spammy SEO tactics can help you rank fast to only be de-indexed when Google catches up with the tactics used.
6) Website URL Structure:
Dynamically generated URL or any other URL that doesn’t contain your targeted keywords won’t help your site rank higher on the search engine results. This is another factor of helping Google understand your site and what each of your pages is all about.
7) Build and Attract Quality Links:
When you first build your website. It’s advisable to get quality links from websites related to your business or industry. Ideally, your website should attract backlinks on its own but realistically, no one will link to your website if it’s non-existent. So, it’s very important to build your backlinks specially in the early stages of your search engine marketing campaign.
8) Help Google Read and Understand Your Website:
A lot of local business websites aren’t even indexed by Google! It’s surprising that most small business owners invest a premium on Web design that Google can’t even read and don’t think that they need to invest in online marketing. You can have the simplest website and beat the heck out of those expensively designed, dynamic websites on Google search results and take home 90% of the leads that you can turn into actual paying customers once they land your sale funnel! If you have a non-performing website that’s been online for years, chances are, it isn’t even indexed by Google because their robots can’t read it.
9) Make Your Site User-Friendly:
Do you know who the ultimate users of your website are? Well, I bet you do! Your target market are the users that you should really be optimizing your website for. Google’s aim is to serve the highest quality websites possible that they think will help the human searcher resolve a concern or a problem. If you’re website is too high-end, it may be difficult for users to know where to start using your site and might just click away and move on to the next website that they think will fit their need. Site speed is also an important factor here.
10) Use Images:
Images are important, not only because they add up to the aesthetics of your web pages but because they can help you attract traffic from the search engines as well. Yes, Google can’t read images but it can read filenames and image descriptions. So instead of just using your “img1003?, rename it into a more descriptive filename that’s related to your business or industry; you can actually use keywords on your images, just don’t make it look like you’re keyword stuffing as it could back-fire.
11) Plan Your Website Structure:
Website structure is a huge factor in making sure that all your keyword-focused pages are in fact indexed and are accessible by Google. The best website structure is a tier three website; counting from the homepage, you shouldn’t exceed three levels down, 4th level is simply too deep for the robots to to visit. Again, help make it easy for Google to access your site by building a search engine friendly website structure.
No comments:
Post a Comment