Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of making your website findable through search engine’s like Google and Bing. SEO is one of the best online marketing tactics available to businesses with an online presence. It can have a significantly higher Return On Investment (ROI), if done correctly, than other types of online marketing. It is a long-term process that depends on many factors and while there’s no guaranteed formula for page one success there are a few best-practices that can help improve your website in the eyes of the search engines. Here are 5 great tips you can implement in your SEO efforts today.
- GIVE PEOPLE A GOOD REASON TO VISIT YOUR SITE – WRITE GOOD CONTENT
- DO PROPER KEYWORD RESEARCH
- START A BLOG / KEEP YOUR SITE FRESH
- GIVE YOUR VISITORS REAL VALUE – SPEND TIME ON CREATING “SHARE WORTHY” CONTENT
- GET SOCIAL
With the latest updates to Google’s search algorithm, and because of the way Bing weighs webpages, the content you have on your page is becoming more and more important. Your website’s content (the text, images, videos, etc. on your page) needs to valuable, substantial and be relevant to the types of search terms you are going after. Pages with thin or little content are seen as not providing as much value as pages with lots of useful and relevant content. Revisit the pages of your website and ask yourself if there is anything more you could add that would not only help your visitors, but ensure that search engines know exactly what topic your page is about.
It’s also important to know what people are actually searching for on website’s like Google and Bing. A great tool to research what people are actually searching for is the “Google Keyword Tool.” Although this tool was intended for use with Google AdWords, it provides great insights into what people everywhere are searching for. So if you were to research the term “SEO,” the keyword tool would show you all of the actual terms people type into Google everyday to search for things related to SEO. You can use this information to help write your website’s content. Including actual search terms in your content helps search engines determine what a particular page is about.
Another great way to help your search engine rankings is to include a blog on your site. Google and Bing heavily favour sites that continuously put out fresh and valuable content. In recent months a Google algorithm update (an update to the formulas Google use to rank webpages) was entirely focused on the “freshness” of a site’s content. Some websites that were outdated or not regularly updated lost rankings. If you are updating your blog regularly with content that is related to your industry, product or service it will help your site’s ongoing SEO efforts.
This point is related to the first point of having good content on your site. But if you write or create REALLY great content, it can work for your site in even more ways. When people online find really useful, valuable information, they like to share it. If people are sharing content that’s hosted on your own site, your site will gain valuable links pointing back to it from other sites. Gaining links to your site is an extremely important (i.e. the most important) part of optimizing your site for search engines. The best way to gain lots of high quality links is to create content (text, videos, audio, images, etc.) that is so useful and valuable that your visitors cannot help but share it.
The latest Google algorithm update has started placing a large importance on social votes and social signals. Social votes are obtained when people on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and, increasingly, Google+ share your content or website with their friends/followers/circles. It’s important that your company is active on social networks sharing your own great content and interacting with users about that content. This is even more important since Google has now stated that they will be including information from a person’s Google account (specifically Google+) to offer up search results. This means if you have a really good social presence, you can have an equally good search engine presence.
Ensuring your site is user-friendly, quick to load (reduce the size of the graphics and templates you use) and has great, valuable content that is fresh and continuously updated will go a long way in helping your SEO efforts. Try implementing these changes on your site and in your overall marketing strategy online. You’ll notice an improvement in either the way people interact with your site, the way search engines view your site, or both.
Tags: bing, blog, content, google, google plus, keywords, search engine, search engine optimization, seo, Tips
