Whether you’re a small business owner or run a Fortune 500 company, SEO has an enormous impact on the success of your business. Your SEO strategy determines how easily your target customers can find you. Given that 75% of internet users don’t even look past the first page of search results, that’s no easy task.
1. Focus on a Specific Topic
Search engines want to point people toward the most authoritative and correct results. So, if you’re an expert in a particular topic that you wish to explore, your website’s content should reflect that. Want to share your recipes with the world? Then food should be your site’s focus. Don’t blend pancake content with, say, metalworking. After all, it’s unlikely that your website is a massive multinational corporation or a large news organization that needs to be all things to all people.
2. Reduce Your Website’s Load Time
According to Google’s market research(Opens in a new window), 53 percent of mobile audiences leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Their time is valuable, so don’t encourage them to bounce with a slow-as-molasses website.
3. Use Unique Meta Data
Page titles, descriptions, and keywords should all be different. Many times, web designers will create a template for a website and forget to change out the meta data, and what ends up happening is that several pages will use the original placeholder information.
Every page should have its own set of meta data; it is just one of the things that helps search engines get a better grasp of how the structure of the website is constructed.
4. Write Information-Packed Meta Descriptions
A meta description, also known as a snippet, is a small paragraph within each of your page’s HTML code. Meta descriptions appear in search engine results beneath page titles, and explain a page’s purpose in a more in-depth fashion. It’s here that you can write longer descriptions (approximately 150 characters!) that wouldn’t fit in page titles. Warning: don’t throw all your keywords in there. That’s keyword stuffing, and search engines frown on that. Instead, write your meta description in simple language.
5. Create Quality Content on a Consistent Basis
Content quality factors into SEO, too. For example, a blog about car engines needs to answer questions or illuminate niche topics. Rather than rambling on about engines, it’s best to go in-depth with information-packed articles, such as “The 5 Fundamentals of Transmission Repair” or “Things You Might Not Know About Carburetor Cleaning.”
6. Update your website frequently
Sites with dynamic content often rank higher than those with static content. That’s why blogs and directories (like Wikipedia) do so well on search engines. They are constantly being updated with new content.
