As I already mentioned in my previous blog about the Importance of SEO, it’s beneficial for businesses to have their websites optimized in a way so their websites show up on the first page of organic search listings when people are looking for relevant products or services. There are two techniques in which you can optimize your website for search engines: the first is on- page optimization and second is off-page optimization.
On page optimization techniques:
· Keywords research. It is important to search for the most relevant keywords that people use when searching for products or services that are similar to your business offerings. There are different ways in which you can choose keywords for your website. For example, if your business is offering English language courses you can just perform a search query “language courses” and the search engine will show the relevant keywords or keyword phrases that people are often searching for. There are also a variety of free keyword research tools that you can use. Some of them are: Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Google Trends and SEMrush. SEMrush also enables you to see what keywords your competitors are using so you can benchmark from them. After collecting a variety of keywords and keywords phrases you should incorporate them into your websites URLs, Meta Tags and Body of Text (when you write a description of your products or services, “about us” page description, blog posts of the website). It is important to have relevant keywords and high quality content that is suitable for your business so search engines can easily navigate through your site and index it correctly. Use your keywords but make sure to not overstuff your content with to many similar keywords that don’t support your content because websites that are found to be violating these rules will be penalized and can be removed from search engine result pages1.
· Internal linking. You can include content links and navigation links to your website pages so it will enable people to have a better user experience on your site and it also helps search engines to crawl your pages more efficiently and index them accordingly.
· Use relevant images. Images make websites more appealing. You should also use ALT text that will describe your images. This helps people with accessibility difficulties to use your website (users who are visually impaired might use software to help them read your website2) and ALT text is also beneficial for search engines.
· Blogging. By posting relevant and interesting information on your website about your products and services and offering tips regarding your products will incentivize people to come back to your website and will also provide benefits for your SEO ranking.
Off page optimization techniques:
· Inbound links to your website. There are different ways in which you can bring people to your website. You can be active on a variety of social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and engage with people on those sites. Participation on social media will help you to get more backlinks to your website and you can promote you business and website on those sites. You can also participate in guest blogging where you can create content on someone else’s blog and, if relevant, include links back to your own site.
· Local Links. If you are running a local business you can ask other local companies to provide links to your business.
· Social Bookmarking. Some of the most popular bookmarking sites are StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit.
· Participate on Answer Questions sites like Yahoo Answers. By asking and answering questions on those sites you can build your reputation and show that you are qualified in a specific subject. You can also provide a link to your website so people could easily find your website.
Sources:
1. THE ART OF DIGITAL MARKETING, WILEY, page 20
2. THE ART OF DIGITAL MARKETING, WILEY
Super useful. Thank you for sharing !
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