Having a robust online presence is essential to the success of your business today, but what can you do to make sure that your website comes up in the top slots of search engine results? This is where Search engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. Read on and discover the best SEO tactics that will raise your online visibility, drive relevant traffic to your site and boost your overall conversions.
1. Keyword Research
So the first part of any successful SEO campaign is keyword research. This means discovering which words or phrases your potential customers are searching for when they are looking to buy a product or service like yours. Then you work those exact words into your website content so your pages appear when someone searches for one of your sought-after keywords. Tools such as Google Keyword Planner can tell you which keywords have a high number of searches, but low competition (a high search volume can mean high value, but you need to make sure no one else is trying to rank You want to outrank your competitors, not fight them).
2. On-Page Optimization
After you have the target keywords, you can start optimizing your web pages. Onpage includes the use of these keywords in all critical areas such as a title, meta description, headlines and in the overall page content. At the same time, it should not be only keyword-rich content, it needs to be valuable, interesting and relevant to the audience. The better your page is optimised, the higher you will rank on search engine result pages.
3. Technical SEO
The other kind, technical SEO, refers to updates made to the back-end of your website, such as improving page load speed, ensuring that your pages are mobile-friendly, that your site is using the secure HTTPS protocol when appropriate, that all links are functional, and that your site’s structure is fitted with a hierarchical architecture that search robots can crawl to index its pages.
4. Content Creation
SEO is grounded in the notion that awesome content is the key factor for getting a higher search ranking. If you write something that’s interesting, unique and helpful, people will want to link to it, share it, and find it worthy of their time. High-quality content is the ticket to improving your search ranking, if it’s tagged correctly and maintained. This can entail blog posts, infographics, videos, or other media. Nowadays updating your content routinely is also an important factor in search rankings. Having fresh content on your website keeps it contemporary.
5. Link Building
The second major factor behind your position in a Google search page is the quality of the links pointing to your site, in other words, backlinks. In other words: the more backlinks from established sites that point to you, the better. If people deem your content worthy enough to link to, you get credit from search engines for sharing a page with an authoritative site. Best ways to get backlinks: guest blogging, co-operation, create valuable content that people will want to link to.
6. Local SEO
This is particularly true for businesses targeting a specific geographical area, which should focus on optimizing the site with these location-specific keywords and claiming and optimizing their Google My Business listing. They should also strive for plenty of positive reviews from happy customers, which can help their local search visibility and bring in more local traffic.
7. User Experience (UX)
SEO goal No 3: Offer a good user experience Don’t get me wrong – user experience isn’t technically a ranking signal. People don’t actually type in Google ‘I want to visit a website that offers a bad experience’. But it is important for SEO because Google has filters that avoid user from having negative experiences. And if your site is easy to navigate, looks nice, loads fast, contains relevant content in an easy-to-see form, then it’s unlikely that people would want to bounce away after landing on your site. And that’s a good thing because people who stay longer on your site will spend more time deciding whether or not your content is actually relevant to their search, and that will definitely put your site higher in search results. So bring on good usability testing and adjust your site accordingly.
8. Analytics and Monitoring
For monitoring the results of your SEO activity, you can make use of free tools provided by Google, such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Google Analytics can give you insightful metrics to assess the performance of your site, while monitoring the traffic it attracts on a weekly or monthly basis. Google Search Console helps you keep track of the content you have indexed in Google, and provides details on the searches – and queries – that directed users to your page. By looking at the data regularly, you can identify the issues, experiment with your approach and then change it in order to maximise the results.
9. Competitor Analysis
Monitoring competitor sites can be an excellent way of passing the test through identifying both strengths and weaknesses. Determine keyword opportunities, rankings, blockages, and identify where changes could improve organic visibility.
10. Social Media Integration
Social media signals can’t have an impact on SEO, but prominently sharing content on social channels will get more people to interact with it, which could lead to more traffic to your site and more links to your content. By sharing your content on social media channels, you can make your site more discoverable, which can in turn indirectly impact search engine rankings.
If you incorporate them into your SEO strategy, you’ll gain highly visible rankings, and attract more targeted quality traffic. Remember, SEO is an ongoing process that needs to be updated and tweaked on a regular basis. If you stay focused on optimizing your site, you’ll be rewarded with increased online performance.
Go pro with your SEO – talk to AlphaIT today about website audits and technical skills for crafting a bespoke SEO campaign to suit your business objectives. Website: www.alphait.ca ✉ vsharma@alphait.ca 📞 +1 780 318-0149
