There are a number of ways to get people to visit your website but one of the most effective remains search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a legitimate online marketing service that helps companies get their websites to appear on Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines.
Is your website correctly optimized? We’ve outlined 10 tips for you to get a head start on developing an effective on-page SEO strategy:
1) Write good content – Content really is king. Write good content with relevant and important keywords in mind and add new content on a regular basis to your website. New content fuels organic search engine traffic growth. The more frequent the content is updated to a website, the more frequently search engine spiders visit that site. Some content marketing assets that have had the most success include: blog posts, keyword targeted SEO landing pages, infographics and short industry-related articles and news information. For optimal results, include two (2) to (3) instances of a keyword within the content of each page of your site. Remember, if your content is of poor quality, no one will visit your website or share your content.
2) Regularly Find and Update Keywords – User expectations of search terms will always change. Build a master keyword list and commit to finding keywords regularly that are applicable to your industry. A good rule of thumb is to look at the first page of search results to see what most often appears. Think about what your target audience might be searching for and make sure those keywords are on the page. This will provide you with valuable information and keywords that resonates with most users.
3) Use Keyword Expansion Tools – Utilize free online resources like Google’s Keyword Tool. This will allow you to determine the number of searches for your particular products or services. Type your keyword into the “Find Keywords” search box to see the amount of global and local monthly searches on those terms. The Google Keyword tool will also enable you to analyze the competition volume that currently exists for your selected keywords.
4) Use Meta Tags – Meta tags tell search engines how a particular webpage should be indexed and what your site is about. Meta tags are snippets of code on a web page. These tags offer information about a page (metadata) and alert search engines with relevant information describing the content of the page, and help search engines decide if your website is an appropriate listing in response to a particular search query. The most popular Meta tags are the title tag, meta description, and keyword tag. These tags serve as organic ad text.
5) Add Geo-targeting – Add geo-centric terms to keywords to target local areas. When servicing multiple regions, add local content per area. When building out your content, include localized keywords so that search engines know you have offices and operate in certain locations. Ensure that each geocentric focus of your website has locally relevant information.
6) Use a Combination of Different Inbound Links – There are two different types of links– inbound and internal. Ensure your website contains a combination of different inbound links. For outside sources pointing to your site, use a variety of links that weave into each section of your site pertaining to specific material. Search engine spiders value these types of links. To determine which links are directing most traffic to your site, use Google Webmaster tools to run a ranking report to check your keyword performance.
7) Check Your Current State and Competition- Based on your keyword list, establish baseline rankings and compare it against a broad set of your competitors in the search engines results pages (SERPs). This will help you determine how well you are doing with your selected keywords and what competitors and ranking content looks like for each phase.
8) Have a Simple Title – Search engines pay particular attention to what lies between the HTML head tags, such as <H1>, <H2>, and <H3>. As a result, titled and subtitles are important positions for your keywords. For each page on your website include a <h1>, <h2> or <h3> tag that has main keywords within it. Keep your titles simple and to the point.
9) Enable Social Media Sharing Buttons –There are many places on your website where social media may help improve your SEO and growth in your online presence. Think about how social continues to impact the customer experience. Install buttons for all the major social sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest). With these buttons readers can spread the word about your content.
10) Measure and Track – Set up web analytics and define actionable goals within your analytics. Look closely at quality metrics associated with the traffic activity from search engine visitors. Visitor performance metrics will demonstrate the value of your SEO program. Performance metrics to measure include: bounce rates, page views per visit and conversion rates. Google Analytics is one free solution that can provide customized tracking and reporting.
Optimize your website and pages using SEO best practices. Remember that new content fuels organic search engine traffic growth. Choose the right keywords for your content and website and use them wisely and naturally. Review search engine updates from Google, Bing and Yahoo! regularly. Google has made the effect of penalizing websites with no added value to readers. Duplicated and weak content were abolished and eradicated with the Panda and Penguin updates. Dig deep into quality metrics associated with the traffic activity from search engine visitors and continue to look for opportunities to improve your SEO.
SEO is a natural process that requires constant monitoring and effort to improve website traffic. What SEO tactics and tools are you currently using to get more traffic to your website and boost your search engine results pages? For more information on SEO best practices, download our whitepaper A B2B Marketer’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization.
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