You’re proud of your sleek new website; now it’s time to show it off! You want to start gaining exposure immediately and improve your search engine rankings, but how? We take the following five steps with every SEO client, helping to boost their search engine optimization and draw more visitors to their websites.
Focus on valuable content.
According to QuoraCreative, three out of four SEO experts say high quality content is the most important aspect of creating an SEO-friendly website.
Keywords can only get you so far. Yes, using the right keywords might boost your SEO results and draw an audience, but only high quality content will keep them around. Visitors who take the time to browse multiple pages on your website, or who keep coming back for more, will boost your website views significantly. As we all know, customer retention boosts profits tremendously.
So, how do you create valuable content?
- Consider your target audience, and what types of content they’re looking for
- Analyze your keywords, and compare other content created for those keywords
- Determine how you can provide content that is competitive and reflects your brand
- Focus on content that is useful, informative, or entertaining to your target audience
- If you’re blogging, make sure blogs are well written, clear, and easy to read and understand
Use long-tail keywords that appeal to your audience.
Long tail keywords contain three or more words, and represent more broad and relevant terms for which your audience is likely to search. Good long tail keywords encourage the searcher to take action (buying a product, signing up for a service, and so on).
Incorporate metadata.
The metadata that you include on your web pages and blog posts will tell Google bots what your site is all about. Once “crawled” by Google bots, this metadata actually determines how the search engine will rank your website. Use the tools in the back end of your website to optimize each page’s slug (the URL), meta title, meta description, image ALT text, and WordPress tags (if you’re using that platform).
Distribute content effectively.
Following the above steps will aid your SEO results, but you should also distribute content in order to maximize traffic.
Focus on creating content that can be utilized in a variety of ways, such as blog articles or videos that can also be posted on social media and linked back to your website. Customize each piece of content according to audience interests, and distribute your content on various platforms. Paid advertising can be useful for reaching new audiences.
Content distribution is one of the best ways to get noticed by the search engines and drive traffic to your website.
Update and repurpose old blog posts.
Once you’ve created content, it always belongs to you. So why not wring every bit of value from each blog post? Update older posts to include new and relevant information. Reworking and repurpose the content with the intent of driving new and repeat viewers to your website.
A great SEO plan is an ongoing process, not a “one-and-done” task. It can be difficult to know where to start. Understanding that your content is a key component will help you put together a plan that will engage your audience and improve your optimization at the same time.
If you’re considering revamping your website or taking measures to boost SEO, contact us to learn more about each of these steps. We can analyze your goals for your website, and help you develop a strategy to reach them.