5 Basic Search Engine Optimization Tips You Can Apply Right Now
SEO (or search engine optimization) is the organization and approach of a website so that it appears in search engine rankings for certain keywords. Optimizing your website to rank high in search results can be a complex process, but these SEO tips will outline 5 key factors that are easy to implement and will help your overall search results.
1. Focus on your keywords.
Keywords are the words and phrases that your potential customers will type into a search engine when searching for information about products or services associated with your business online. The more generic a keyword is, the more competition it will have. When a keyword is more specific, the search results will be more defined and targeted.
2. Your page layout.
Search engines crawl the Internet and create an index of all websites. This index is used to provide search engine results and better results are achieved by having your keyword placed strategically in your page layout. For example, it is advantageous to have your keyword in your domain name. This isn’t always possible, so be sure to insert your keyword in your page title, first sentence, and subheadings within the content. Also try to use your keyword as anchor text. These are the highlighted words that, when clicked, will be linked to open a specific web page.
3. The content of your page.
Content is king and you need to generate information that is unique, beneficial to your audience and easily readable by people, not just search engines. Ideally, your page should be approximately 500-1,000 words containing 4-8 keywords. If you just fill one page with a lot of keywords, your website will be marked as spam and not ranked at all. Update your website content frequently. A great way to do this is to write a regular blog.
4. Building links.
Link building is the process of creating links to your website from third party websites. Search engines view backinks as an indication of the popularity and value of a website’s content. In general, increasing the number of backlinks pointing to a site will improve the search ranking of that website, but it will ensure that the links coming into your website, or backlinks, are coming from quality websites and not just spam websites made up of keywords. Poor backlinks will lower your ranking.
5.Use images.
Although search engines can’t ‘read’ images, they can read the descriptions you give your images. Each photo, image, or graphic must have a keyword attached to it. Images also make the page more attractive to your readers and can entice the reader to read your content in more detail.