It’s sort of funny how you start a website and have no knowledge of how they work and then suddenly you are thrown into this unknown world. People that don’t have websites don’t realize how beneficial they are, but they also don’t realize they are hard work. This IS something you can just throw together, but chances are you won’t have very good results. It takes time, some money, a lot of knowledge and a lot of luck to get a website up and running and to keep it running. You need to not only rely on things like good design and good content; you need to rely on other things like SEO. Maybe before you had a website, you had no idea what SEO is, but by now you are probably pretty immersed in this subject. Still, things are ever changing in the SEO world and there are always more things, new things or quick things you can do to improve your SEO – website ranking. If you are looking for a few new options to improve your SEO, or you want to improve it quickly, check out some of the tips below.
Relevant and Quality Content
You’ve probably seen it before; you visit a website, and you start to read a blog and your head spins at the words on the screen. If you’ve ever visited a website and they either cannot write well, cannot spell well, or you read the article 5 times before on another website, chances are you probably leave and go somewhere else, I know I do. The same goes with your website. Is it easy to copy and paste content? Yeah it is. But, is it going to get you more readers? No. Chances are they will leave. Furthermore, if you don’t know how to write, don’t write. Hire someone to do it. You can find great writers all over the place; try Craigslist, freelancer.com you can even find a top SEO company that has dedicated writers to write the content for you. Make sure you also have relevant content on your website. If your website is about one thing and you are writing another just to grab people from the search engines, well, first off it’s not a good business practice. Second off, chances are you will either confuse readers, or just piss them off. Remember, content on your website is not just for the search engines. It’s for your readers and visitors.
Proper Navigation
On site SEO is just as important as off-site SEO. Your website should be somewhat of a familiar place for your readers and new visitors. Make sure your navigation menu can easily be found and can be used easily. Include everything you need to, but set it up in an organized manner i.e.; Services, Contact, About Us, Social Profiles. Improper or confusing navigation menus can scare people off, frustrate them, and make them pretty unhappy. The shorter the number of steps to get where they want to go, the better i.e.; don’t have 3 tiered levels of menus, maybe one or two instead.
Make Your Website Mobile Friendly
One of the things you have to realize about the internet is that not everyone is going to access it or your website using a laptop or PC. Some people are going to use their phones while others are going to use MP3 players, tablets or even televisions and video game consoles. Because of this, you want your website to be available and readable to all of your visitors, not just laptop and PC visitors. Mobile websites are becoming more and more people over the past 5 years and Google has recently had a mobile update. So this isn’t just going to benefit your visitors, but you as well. Making a website mobile is actually pretty easy. Some sites like WordPress have plug ins, other sites like Yola and Wix have a simple check mark box you have to agree to in order to let them make your website mobile friendly, while other sites use a simple code. It’s not too difficult to be honest.
Link Your Social Profiles to Your Website
Not only should you have your social profiles available on your website, but every single website you join should include your website URL in the profile section. You might be surprised at how many times people will see that website URL on Facebook to your website and click it – or Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Yelp or just about anywhere else.
Choosing the Right Keywords
Some people that are just starting out might not even know what keywords are, I hope you do though! Keywords are such an important part of your website. Not only are they indexed to show up on search engines for when people do searches on places like Google, but choosing the right keywords could mean clawing your way to the top of the search engines or easily being put there. I know that Google has done a lot of changes over the last few years and it’s gotten almost frustrating keeping up with all the updates, but one thing has stayed tried and true; keywords DO matter and so does keyword research. Make sure you are looking for the right keywords for your website and you not only use them on your website, but relevant social posts, profiles, etc.
