A well marketed website sees a strategy that pulls together a number of key components. This includes branding that caters to its audience, formulates a seamless customer experience (UX), as well as looking at current trends and insight into competitors. Of course, the thing that really draws in the numbers is ensuring you rank well on search engines with the help of an excellent SEO strategy.
Standing for Search Engine Optimisation, SEO is the key to ensuring your website sits in a high position for relevant search terms and assists in generating the traffic you desire to your website.
Of course, placating to the ever-changing algorithm of the likes of Google and other search engines can be tricky, but there are certainly a few key ways you can ensure you make those all-important SEO wins and create content that Google sees as of value to users and seeing search engines prioritise your website in giving it a higher positioning.
Whilst there are a plethora of different SEO tips and tricks that will help boost your standing, we’ve come up with our top three SEO solutions that will improve search engine positioning and you should be infusing into your strategy.
1. Writing and Creating Quality Content
When it comes down to it, what sits on your website’s pages is the most important factor to consider, not only in terms of SEO, but also when you think about the kind of user experience you want to offer to potential customers, clients and readers. If you’re not offering something of value then what is the point? That’s what Google’s algorithm will be looking for and, more importantly, what a real person coming onto your page is after. Whether you’re offering a service, information, or something else, the content needs to showcase your authority in whatever sector it may be. But how do you do this?
First things first, the content should be relevant and seek to inform. Knowledge should be specialist where necessary and offer information in a package that is both of a high standard, as well as being widely accessible. Language should be clear to understand, whilst also boasting a bounty of useful details, offering relevant, quality outbound links to supplement and source information.
Of course, whilst not necessarily deemed as crucial as it once was in the world of SEO, relevant keyword use adds focus and allows you to make a bid for some of those easy wins for particular search terms. Keyword research into your relevant subject matter allows you to get an idea of what customers are looking for too when utilising search engines, giving you a point of focus to tailor your content around. That said, you should avoid keyword stuffing, as this comes across as spammy and often makes content unreadable.
Ultimately all content should be unique and of a high standard. It should be engaging, putting the individual reading your content at the forefront of your strategy, as opposed to ticking off every SEO trick in the book. This will prompt others to share content on social media, or link back to you and build a backlink profile organically, showcasing your website and its content to be credible and a great tool that Google should be pushing to the top of its results.
2. Don’t Forget About Snappy Meta Titles and Descriptions
Google really does care about all the nitty gritty details when it comes to assessing your website, and this includes unique meta titles and descriptions that actually highlight the purpose of the content and why it adds value to the sector your business sits in. It goes without saying this also feeds into that all-important UX with the meta title and description appearing as the search result for your page.
Essentially acting as a sell for why someone should click through the search engine result to your website, meta titles and descriptions should be up to date and offer a hook and relevancy that showcases your website offers exactly what users want with the most up-to-date information.
If you are looking to rank for particular keywords, as well as using focus keywords sparingly within any written copy, keywords should feature within the meta title and description where it can organically flow.
Often, if applicable, the meta title features the date, which is a great signal for searchers and Google that this content is regularly refreshed with the latest information. When it comes to the description, you should ensure snappy wording and check against maximum character and pixel advice for meta descriptions to avoid being cut off mid-sentence.
Much like the content on each page, the meta description should also be completely unique rather than copy and pasting across every page on the website. This counts as duplicate content, which is a big no-no when it comes to not only SEO practice, but also in creating a site that aims for quality.
At the heart of a good meta title and description, it’s key to remember this is essentially the start of a user’s journey onto your website via search, so it’s important to make a good impression that achieves that initial click.
3. Check Your Website Loading Speeds
Whether it’s a plug-in, massive video or picture files, or dodgy servers, you need to ensure your website has an excellent loading speed. In this day and age of fibre optic broadband and the like, no one expects to wait more than a couple of seconds for a page to load, so don’t sit waiting in the dark ages – ensure your website is up to scratch.
Considered critical when it comes to SEO practice, as well as improving your rankings in search, speedy performance also boosts the amount of time a user will spend on a page, on top of click to conversion rates with customers far more likely to drop their cash on a website that proves to be fairly seamless.
Tips for boosting loading speeds include investing in a good hosting service for your website, utilising browsing cache so returning users will have elements of the page already saved to their browser, and compressing large files.
Whilst SEO strategy might feel a lot like jumping through Google’s orchestrated hoops, at the heart of it executing SEO practices should have the UX as the focus point, ensuring users get the most from a top quality website.
Laura McLoughlin is a Digital PR based in Armagh, Northern Ireland. She has previous experience as a website editor and journalist. She currently works with Omnia.
SEO stock photo by Sky Motion/Shutterstock
