If you’re new to having your own website, marketing, internet commerce, and the like, search engine optimization is something you really should know about. Without having strategies your presence on the internet will go unnoticed by anyone looking for the services and products you offer.
In a nutshell, SEO is a marketing strategy that focuses on making your site pop up near the top of search engine results by working with their algorithms. If someone Googles “calligrapher for invitations,” and that’s your business, how will you help your business pop up near enough to the top that they’ll find you among the almost 19 million other sites that come up? I just tried, and yes – if you’re a calligrapher, you’re one of almost 19 million other businesses that do calligraphy!
The good news is, even a little knowledge of SEO can make a big difference. Here’s an overview to get you started!
Google Analytics
Install it on your website, and you’ll be able to track and analyze things like how many visits you’re getting from what search engine, which pages are getting the most visits, and other important facts to know. Knowledge is power! And the free version has pretty much everything you’ll need.
Google Search Console
Google is the most widely used search engine, so learning how to work with just that is the single best action you can take. Google Search Console gives you data about your site’s performance and ranking in Google.
Using WordPress? I hope so! If you do, there’s Google Analytics plugin
Provides similar data as Google Analytics, but is a little more user-friendly.
While we’re talking about WordPress, Yoast plugin is terrific
I use this tool more than any other. As a website owner, this is the one to get. Even if you do nothing else, it makes it relatively easy for you to optimize your site with content. Like everything else, there’s a learning curve, but worth the investment of your time.
Do keyword research
All that is is understanding what keywords people would use when searching for a site or products that you offer. You can use tools like Adwords Keyword Planner, KW Finder, and Semrush.
Include the keyword for each post or page in the URL.
Keywords in the URL (the actual post or page’s web address) help bump your site up in Google. Keep it short though. Too many keywords in the URL will hurt your ranking.
Title Tag
An interesting and compelling title tag will help your site to stand out by being different enough that people will want to click on it.
Minimum of 100 words on every page
The more words that are on each of your pages, the more that search engines have to work with. Actually, the more words, the better chance there are of turning up relevant results for searchers. That’s all well and good, but don’t stuff extra sentences in your posts for this purpose; if you do, those who DO find your site won’t want to wade through a long-winded tome.
Include links to “authoritative” sites
I’m not sure how it works, but I think that when your pages include links to high-ranking sites and pages, it’s kind of like name-dropping. If your site is associated somehow to an “authoritative” site, it brings your site higher up in rankings.
Check the load speed of your site
The faster the load speed, the better. No one today will bother with a slow-loading site when there are plenty of others to invest their time in. Search engines are the same way. A tool I learned of recently is Google’s Page Speed Insights. It’s kind of fun to use, and suggests ways to improve yours. There’s a WordPress plugin called Smush that shrinks the size of big files that can slow down your site.
Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
This one was a surprise to me at first. Maybe you’re like me, and do all your website stuff on a laptop. When it’s done it looks great, everything loads just fine! But most web browsing is done on mobile devices. It’s necessary to check that your site is mobile-friendly – not just for your viewers, which is important, but a mobile – unfriendly site is affected negatively in search engines. Google has a “mobile friendly” test.
Here’s a tool that will check many of the issues in this post. It’s free and takes just a few seconds, then generates a PDF report for you.
Good luck with your SEO skills, and have fun!
Photo by zane carter on Unsplash
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