Target Keyword Research
Keyword research is one of the most crucial things for SEO on your website. These keywords are search terms that a user will enter into a search engine such as Google. Their goal is to find the product, service, or information that they need based off those keywords.
One of the best tools you can use to research keywords is Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool will help you define your search words but could also help you discover new keywords related to your business. It also provides estimates on search data behind those keywords.
Keyword research is a terrific way to boost traffic to your website and give you insight into current marketing trends. By improving or implementing targeted keywords, you can have much higher ranking on search engines.
Decreasing Page Load Speed
Customers expect a fast online experience, and if there is any confusion in their journey they will abandon your website. It’s critical that your website provides a fast web experience. If your website is slow, it will demote your ranking on search engines and other websites with faster speeds will surpass you.
Google says it best themselves – “Speed Equals Revenue”. Although your site may have great information, it will go to waste if it takes more than a few seconds for each page to load. One way to check your website’s speed is through online tools, such as Pingdom.
SEO Friendly URLs
An often overlooked point of failure in a website not gaining traction can be a lack of SEO friendly URLs. Here’s an example of an SEO friendly URL and a non-SEO friendly URL:
https://www.test.com/?action=blog&blogpost=how-to-get-friendly-urls
https://test.com/blog/how-to-get-friendly-urls
The latter link is not only easier to read, it’s more memorable and appealing to your users. Google takes this into account when ranking your website, and while most modern websites will have some form of SEO friendly URLs, not all do. It’s a small change that makes a big difference to both users and search engines.
Backlinks
What are backlinks? Backlinks refer to when another website links back to your website. When Google was first developed, backlinks were the primary way the search engine ranked sites!
While today backlinks are not the only way Google ranks your website, they are still a vital component of search engine optimization. The more people you have linking to your site, the more important it becomes in Google’s eyes – which makes sense.
Think about it like this: if I mention Ford, do you think I’m talking about Harrison Ford or the car company? More than likely, your first thought was the car company. And that’s because people are more likely to know about the car company than the actor. Backlinks work much the same way, if a site is referenced everywhere it’s clearly important and is much more likely to be the target of any given user’s search.
Metadata
Metadata are tags on your website’s HTML page that help search engines understand what your website is all about. Meta tags like title and description are what users will see on Google when your site shows up.
By using keywords in your title and description, metadata can help search engines to more quickly understand the content your page contains. However, Google doesn’t always use your exact metadata tag information. Sometimes it will change your website’s title or description in the search engine listing to what they think is more relevant. By using these tags, you make it far more likely that search engines will get your title and description correct.
Tracking Your Website Traffic
Website traffic is the number of visits and engagement you get on your website. As an example, it would be helpful to know what products are clicked on more frequently than others. This gives you the insight to know what aspects of your site appeal to users more than others, and change your business plan accordingly. It presents an opportunity to experiment and see what performs well and what doesn’t.
Google Analytics is a great tool to use for website tracking, as it offers a lot of detail. It also allows you to see the customer’s journey through your site. It will also provide information on whether your keyword research is working effectively or not.
Conclusion
SEO is valuable to your business growth and path to success. We know that navigating through Google and understanding the algorithm can be frustrating and confusing to those who don’t quite understand it. That’s why with our web design services, we help with search engine optimization. Hopefully the information shared in this article can help you understand SEO more and how it can help your business.
