Laying Out the Intricacies of Search Engine Optimization for Websites
Search engine optimization (SEO) means making sure your website ranks well in search engine results from Google, Bing, Yahoo and others.
SEO is an always evolving process, because search engines constantly modify the algorithms used for ranking websites. It’s not possible to know everything about how the algorithm functions and how it’s changed; however by covering fundamental areas, you can achieve good results.
It is essential to understand the goal of search engines, and that is to provide search results that are useful to people online. Therefore the goal for your website should coincide with that of the search engine. Here are four main areas to consider:
Site Structure
The website should have a clear structure with basic information being provided with pages like ‘about us’ and an overview of your services or products. You can expand your pages highlighting benefits of your products, guides on using your services and of course a contact page.
Monitor statistics for each of your pages to identify where your visitors land and what pages to they use the most. Website analytics can help you identify high converting content and find improvement potential for your pages.
Content
Search engines have always prioritized good content — the main ingredient for the search algorithm is content. Writing about your business or product in an interesting, informative way will wield fruitful results for your search engine optimization efforts. In case you are struggling to create content by yourself you can always hire a specialist. You will quickly recuperate any investment from increased traffic to your website.
Keywords
Previously websites were able to climb the search results ranks by filling the pages with keywords at the expense of well written content. The search engines have caught up to this and this method is now instantly penalized.
Keywords however are still important, because these represent the only guiding factors to algorithms to correctly categorize websites on their content. Use those pertaining to your business and in a relevant context. Services such as Google’s AdWords, Keyword Planner and Google Trends can help you.
Accessibility
When building your website you might get tunnel focused on how the pages look on your own device. However a well designed website will bring traffic if it is accessible on as many devices and browsers as possible. Having a mobile version of your website has also become a major factor in search engines’ algorithms. Your website should be accessible to everyone, whatever device they’re using. Check it on a smartphone, a laptop and a tablet. Does it work well on all of them? If not, get your web developer to fix it.
If you do SEO properly, you will start receiving web traffic via a search engine (such as Google). That means more sales leads for your business, so it’s a great method to increase revenues.
