A website is excellent for marketing and representing a business on a large scale. But then, it is just another pile of information in the deep web where no one can access. It is just like you have lit a candle to give you light, yet you keep it under the bed. Of what use is that light?
The same idea applies to having a website. It is the light that shines on your business, so people have to see it. SEO is the best way to ensure your website receives visitors. That is not enough though; you need to understand what SEO is and how best to use it.
So how do you do it? Continue reading to find out more.
1. Content is King
When some people hear about content, they think “that’s easy, all I have to do it create content.” Well, that is almost right, but there is more to content than meets the eye.
It is one thing to write content. But to write the content of real value is an entirely different thing. You need material that contains value-added content. So before you go about singing ‘content, content, content is king’, understand what type of content is suitable for your website.
To know the difference between contenders and pretenders, look at the type of content they produce. Content marketing is maturing and continues to grow by the day. It is all about value above quality.
What is value-added content?
So what is value-added content? Is it just content like any other content? The most straightforward answer is in the term itself.
It is content that is unique, original, and exclusive. It is information that your audience cannot find it in any other place. Value-added content tends to be very popular with readers because it provides actual value. Thus, this type of value receives rewards from Google through ranking.
Think of this content as a meal you thoughtfully presented meal in a new restaurant from a world-class chef. You may remember that meal, and it takes away your appetite for anything else. Perhaps you would love to go back and have the same experience. That is what content with value is.
Bad content will ruin your website for nothing. Consider the value in your content because, with that value, you have nothing to give really.
You customers, as well as customers, trust you enough to want information that is accurate and helpful. They expect you to break down the information in a way that is understandable to them.
Different types of content to produce
You cannot understand value-added content unless you see it in action. Consider the following examples, and perhaps you will get some definite ideas.
- Blog posts
You can use a blog post that is informative, educative and or answers the question to meet the needs of the searcher. Those who have tried different strategies for content marketing understand that relevance is key to a successful blog. It needs to address the intent of the searcher.
- Relevant and engaging videos
They say an excellent image speaks louder than a thousand words. While that is true, videos cannot serve you well unless you have great content for them. It is becoming more and more vital to creating video content that engaging for your customers.
Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, the IGTV and facebook live are giving you a great way to handle your video videos. You don’t even need to polish your videos with expensive tools as one may think.
Just post a story on Instagram a few times a week, and your customer will feel the connection you are giving them.
- E-Books
If you come about with an e-book that is thoughtfully put together, you will give your customers the best experience for content. Technology is changing as demand for shorter content continues to grow. But then more extended versions and in-depth content continue to attract more attention as well.
Effective content marketing can be put together in an e-book to offer your customers the insights of your business. And e-book is quite informative. It can be the best representation of your brand and your unique position in the industry.
- Newsletters
Newsletters can be another great way to give your customers the information they may have missed out anywhere else. It is a great way to offer present new information about your company development to keep your customers on the lookout.
But if you don’t have a purpose for your newsletter, it is very useless. You need to curate the best information and news you can find in your industry. The goal is for your customers to receive information that is of great value to them and save time at the same time. If you lack a purpose, it would be better if you never created the newsletter at all.
- Webinars
You can give content value to your customer through webinars as well. But then, you must focus on the value aspect of your webinar. You are asking a lot of, and it will not make sense that you provide them shoddy information.
- Infographics
If you are looking to present information using images, graphs and charts, infographics are the best ways to achieve this. They are great for on-page SEO.
- Other great content value include: In-depth newsletters, podcasts e.t.c.
If you are looking to meet the criteria above with your content, perhaps you should make it quid pro quo. It takes a lot of resources and time to create such content with value, which makes sense that you have to gate the content. In other words, don’t make it shy to ask for details from customers. The aim for creating such content is to be as a lead generator for your business.
Try to combine gated and ungated content to satisfy every customer. Some don’t just like filling forms. Just out in mind that “content is king!”
2. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
There are many sensible moves in business and optimizing your website for better conversion is one of them. You will always hear the song, “optimization is key to success for a website.” It is a song because everyone who has a website knows it and tells it, or instead sings it. And there is a reason for that.
Start with a clean and simple homepage. There is nothing that stresses your customers than a wrong home page that is difficult to navigate. Ensure you work with a web designer that knows how to go about giving your users with the best experience.
You are looking for Google to place your website among the top ten results on the SERPs, provide high-quality results. Your customers will view the site as the best if Google puts it at the top of the results page.
Best optimization practices to increase conversion
Consider using the following techniques.
- Increase the speed of your page
- Place your logo in the right position
- Keep homepage simple
- Use live chat
- Too many social share buttons can ruin your reputation
- Redesign A/B test of your website pages
- Let customers check out as guests
- Use video at you home page
- Use high-quality product image
- Get more customer reviews
- Don’t forget to include Call-to-Action
Importance of optimizing your images
Pictures tell a lot. There is no other better way to represent your products and services than using significantly optimized images. Pictures are often huge though, and some people may consider removing them. That is not the best way to go about it. Instead, consider reducing the size.
Images play the following roles.
- They increase the conversion rate
- They are vital for a successful e-commerce website.
The problem is, many sites find it hard to compress images. But the size of images has everything to do with the loading time for your site.
3. Outward & Inward Bound
Links play an essential role in the SEO of your website. You need to add inbound and outbound links on your website to get more visitors to your website.
Inbound links
Inbound links are commonly known as backlinks. They are the type of links that point to your site. Search engines like it when you have a thousand links pointing to your website. It shows that many people trust your website and the same trust will come from Google.
But then, quality is the key to great inbound links. It is better to have just a few links of high quality than have a thousand of them with poor quality. Instead of rewarding you, Google will penalize you for poor quality links to your site.
You need only relevant links pointing to your website. Such links come from high-quality sites. The last thing you want is to look spammy.
You have no control over which links point to your websites. You always have to check the links to avoid Google penalty. But if you have quality content on your site, you will receive quality links “dofollow” links.
“Dofollow” links with quality will increase the PR for your website.
Outbound links
Opposite to inbound links is outbound links that point to other sites. You have more control over such links.
But you should link to relevant websites only as you could get penalized as well. Some say that it is against Google rules to outbound links, but it is not if you follow the rules.
4. Titles & Alt Tags
Images always make your readers interested in the article you have written. But it is not nearly enough to use images. Always back your images with great alt attributes. These are alt tags and title tags. The alt attributes are necessary for strengthening the message of your articles. They receive more recognition from search engine spiders as well as improve accessibility.
Title tags in SEO play the same role as the title of a book. They are essential for two types of reader, the people, and the robots.
People use the title tags to understand the content in an article. The robots (crawlers), use different factors to prioritize your page. The title tag is most important SEO ranking factors.
The <title> tag is defined as an HTML element that appears at the <head> section in a web page. They are responsible for letting readers know what kind of information to expect to find in an article.
Google will change your title tag if it does not like it. But you will not like it a bit. Therefore, make your title tag using the following elements to ensure relevance.
- Length
Google has not come out to say about the length of a title tag, but they should not have more than 60 characters. Longer titles will probably be cut off, and you don’t want such things to happen. Avoid capital letters as well as they eat up space.
- Keywords
Keywords use is more important that even the length of your title. The right keywords will perform miracles for your title. Just ensure you don’t stuff keywords as Google will penalize you for that.
Consider using long tail keywords. They tend to carry more weight for modern SEO than short tail keywords. The goal is to appear on the 1stpage of the SERPs. More people will trust your website and chances of receiving more traffic are very high.
Write original long tail keywords to avoid confusion. You don’t want your customers to get to another website thinking it’s you just because you copied the keywords.
Don’t use stop words in your title tags
A word such as a, and, but, so, on e.t.c are stop words. Try different title combinations until you have a great one.
5. Clean Strings Please
A clean URL is one that can read with ease. It does not contain any query strings or URL parameters.
A URL like https://example.com/services/index.jsp?category=legal&id=patientsis considered wrong. It lacks the title description and the contents at a glance. But https://example.com/services/legal/patentshas a straightforward and a more professional look.
The idea is to have a URL right for humans and SEO bots to read. For this reason, you need something more straightforward.
– Importance of URL strings for SEO
People more prefer clean URLs. They are preferred by search engines as well.
Keywords are often used because they identify the relevance of a page. But as seen above, stuffing content with keywords can be harmful to your site.
You need to deliver enhanced usability. It is essential that you help your users remember and share the URL with ease. Clean URLs are responsible for assisting the search engine in identifying the relevance of your website. They use it to choose the information needed for display.
What you need the most are high click-through rates. A clean URL will take you there. Users will understand them quickly because they show high relevance, more so the one with highlighted keywords.
URL parameters
A URL parameter is the web address that appears after the question mark. They are query strings or query path and are added to track a URL. This is why they are also referred to as tracking parameters.
These parameters are essential in:
– Homepage URLs
– Duplicate inner pages and
– Pagination
The dos
To create the best URL strings:
- Use keywords
- Match URLs to page titles
- Minimalize on dynamic URL strings
- Remove unnecessary words
- The use of canonical tags should be done right
- Consider topical authority
- Create a sitemap for an XLM
- Utilize hyphens
- Use a descriptive domain
- Dynamic parameters are something you want to cut out
- Use custom URLs for SEO
The don’ts
- Don’t use words and characters that are superfluous
- Don’t use uppercase characters
- Don’t use punctuation
- Don’t use subfolders
Conclusion
The SEO for your websites can be successfully executed through a number of methods. However, they will not help you unless you have what it takes to facilitate them. It is one thing having a good strategy and a different thing implementing it.
Hopefully, the ideas shared above will give you that energy you need.
