Okay, we’ve all heard the importance of SEO. But SEO is kind of a scary term, right? It sounds so technical and confusing – Search Engine Optimization. Don’t worry. I’m here to simply explain some SEO best practices and concepts and give you a few super easy things you can do today to improve your SEO.
I recently completed an SEO coaching program by the wonderful ladies at Duo Collective. Once it opens again, I highly recommend signing up! Before completing the program, I was familiar with SEO from my experience using the Yoast plug-in in WordPress, but that was it. If I had to implement SEO techniques outside of WordPress, I was screwed. Now, I actually feel qualified offering SEO advice and including it in my services.
Anyway, let’s get into some SEO best practices you can implement on your website, and maybe even your client’s websites, today!
1. Keywords
You were probably expecting this one, right?! Keywords impact whether or not your site ranks for specific search queries. Without a keyword strategy, your website won’t rank for search terms because you aren’t putting out enough content that matches those keywords. Use keyword research tools like Google Analytics and Ubersuggest to find the keywords you want your website to rank for.
Each page of your website should include keywords that you want to rank on page one of Google. Also keep in mind that you don’t want to have the same focus keyword on every page. Each page should have its own focus keyword that it’s trying to rank for. If you have the same focus keyword on every page, your pages are competing against each other, and it’s hard enough to rank as it is!
Ideally, you want a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords in your strategy. Short-tail keywords are one to two words long. These are more general but harder to rank for because they’re more popular. Long-tail keywords are three or more words and tend to be more specific. These keywords get less search traffic because of their specificity but often get more conversions.
Use keywords centered around your business niche. When you’ve created a solid keyword library, implement them in blog posts and other copy on your website. Include keywords in copy headers and alt text to help search engines find and index your website under that keyword.
2. Optimize Images
Stick with me here because there’s a lot you can do to optimize your images for SEO.
Reduce file size
Smaller images load faster on your website, and a huge part of SEO is quick page speed. You want your page to load as fast as possible. In fact, according to HubSpot, conversion rates drop 4.42% for every second of load time. That means if your website loads in 15 seconds (which is the average mobile web page speed), your conversion rate will drop 66%. Images play a big role in page speed, so use a tool like Tinify to reduce the file size without compromising quality.
Alt-Text
Search engines don’t see pictures the same way humans do. Instead, they rely on alt text to identify images on a website. Alt text helps search engines understand what the image is so they can crawl and index websites with content relevant to the search query.
Alt text is also part of image optimization. If your site can’t load images for whatever reason, search engines will use that alt text to display to your visitor what the image is. If you leave out alt text, search engines won’t index your website because it’s missing information.
Alt text also contributes to positive user experience (and search engines reward websites that prioritize this). Visitors who use text-to-speech functions and screen readers use alt text to understand the visual content on your website. Write concise alt text to provide the best user experience and give search engines enough information to rank your website.
3. Have a Blog Page (and Post Consistently!)
One of my favorite SEO best practices 😉 Google likes to see you’re consistently updating your website with valuable information that people are searching for. Adding valuable content through blogs is the best way to do that. It can be a lot to keep up with, so I suggest shooting for one blog per month at a minimum. One per week is better! The main thing is to be consistent. If you need help writing blogs and keeping to a schedule, check out my blogging services!
Search engines reward blogs with enough content and length because they tend to be more relevant to a user’s search query. Your blog posts should always be informative and valuable to your website visitors! Building a connection with your audience is the best long-term strategy in the SEO game.
4. Remember Word Count
You need to have enough copy on each page of your website for Google to index. Search engines want to see enough content on your website to provide users with value. If there isn’t a lot of copy on a page, search engines interpret that the page lacks content and won’t contribute to a positive user experience.
The minimum is 300 words, but try to shoot for more than that! This can be hard for pages where you may not have much copy, so you’ll have to get creative. Here are some ways to do that!
- Duo Collective suggests including an FAQ
- Testimonials
- Links to other helpful pages
5. Optimize Header Tags
Header tags visually break up the text by using different fonts, text sizes, and colors. I used header tags in this blog! Think of them as a hierarchy. You should only have one H1 tag per page, AKA the header. Then you have H2 tags, followed by H3 tags. These should also have keywords (noticing a theme?), so Google knows what your page is about. Header tags also improve readability and keep people on the page longer. The longer people are on your page, the better your SEO ranking is because it’s telling Google that people like the content.
6. Write Unique SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions
Each page needs a unique SEO title and meta description, both of which should include keywords. SEO titles are the website headlines you see in blue when a search query returns. SEO titles fit about 60 characters before being cut off, so they need to be keyword-rich to grab your audience’s attention and clicks.
Meta descriptions are the captions underneath the SEO title on a search engine results page. These descriptions are limited to about 160 characters, so they should summarize the content on that page with the relevant keywords. With SEO titles and meta descriptions, it’s all about putting relevant content and keywords first to attract visitor attention.
While writing these, don’t use too many keywords at once to get your audience to click. This is considered keyword stuffing, which will hurt your SEO. Search engines recognize when sites do this and interpret it as irrelevant content that doesn’t support a positive user experience, so your website won’t rank for those keywords.
Use These SEO Best Practices Today!
SEO shouldn’t be a scary term. You definitely can get technical and “in the weeds” when it comes to SEO analysis, but every business owner can do the minimal SEO best practices to see improvement in website traffic. Every little bit counts! If you want help with SEO and blogging, book a discovery call with me!
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