4 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Site That You May Have Forgotten
SEO is starting to become much more of a household term. I find that, less and less, I no longer need to explain “I make websites rank higher on Google.”
While more companies are making the important investment in search, it’s also very possible to start the process by doing some of the work yourself.
1. Title tag
The most important – and arguably, the easiest – place for implementing keywords on your website is in the title tags of your pages.
Title tags are what you see as the blue (or purple, once clicked) link on Google, as well as at the top of your browser window, in line with the minimize, maximize, and close buttons.
To edit, you may need to have some HTML knowledge (or have your developer insert them). Or, if you use a CMS like WordPress, simply use the title tag area through a plugin (I recommend Yoast SEO) or your CMS.
Your title should be short, sweet, and descriptive of the page. Don’t overuse your keywords and be sure to include your geographic location if you specialize in local business.
2. Create a great navigation
Your website’s navigation structure could make or break the visits – and therefore, conversions – on your website. Navigation is also crucial from an SEO perspective, because it will only help
Anticipate your users’ needs by organizing your website in a way that they’d understand. Here are a few quick tips for creating a great navigation:
- Think about the first pages your visitors will be interested in: your products or services, then your About/Contact pages. You have to sell your visitors on your services before they’ll be interested in learning more about you.
- Keep your navigation to 7-8 total items. Feel free to create drop down menus and even a second level of drop downs; but always keep the number of links in each menu to 8 maximum.
- If a page is clickable, make sure the page has content. It’s important to create content for top level pages, as visitors can get frustrated with this type of setup. That means that instead of just having a page be a main header for a drop down menu, users would actually be able to click on the page.
3. Link between pages
Similar to your navigation, you’ll want to anticipate your visitors’ needs by creating links where they make sense throughout your site and throughout your copy.
That means linking to a page when you mention it or linking to your conversion page (typically a sales page or contact page/form) at the end of every page as a call to action.
4. Blog, blog, and blog some more
Every blogpost you create is one more opportunity for a potential visitor to find your website. Therefore, think of each blogpost as a separate opportunity to optimize for a specific set of key terms. This post, for example, very specifically targets “search engine optimization,” “seo,” and “easy ways to optimize.”
Just like #1, you’ll want to keep the title of your blogpost in mind. Incorporate numbered lists, how to’s, and unique titles in order to get users to click on your posts.
Now get out there and optimize!