7 SEO Tips That Work

If you want people to visit your website, you know you have a lot of competition. There were at least 130 trillion websites that were recognized by Google in 2016. That number has grown since then but even if you are not competing against all of them, having yours pop up at the top of Google or Yahoo search results is key to driving traffic.

1. Make sure your site loads quickly. People have short attention spans. You have three seconds for your site to load if you want to keep people from moving on. Even when people do not move on to another site, they have started their experience with yours annoyed. That is bad. Annoyed people do not buy things. When you are working with your web design company, work to get rid of any elements that slow things down. Even if you are the top dog in search results if your page does not load, what is the point?
2. Develop relationships with other sites. When you link to sites with similar or complementary content and they link to you, both sites win. This may seem counterintuitive. You may be thinking, “why would I want to promote another page on my site?” Understanding the role this link building has in any effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is important. People like to visit and use sites that help them. Sites with helpful links are more likely to have repeat visitors, also known as users, vs. ones that only promote themselves. When you link to other sites, you can also get them to link back to you. This is where that relationship comes in.
3. Create engaging content. It is important to use the right SEO terms but that is not the “end all, be all” of content creation. You can have the best keywords to bring your site to the top of search results but if the content is not readable, it will not help you get and keep people on your website. Even if search engines can find your website, it is people that will use it and whom you want to make into customers. The irony here is that companies that put up higher quality content get the SEO results they want.
4. Have your web analytic plan set at the beginning. You need to be able to track how well your SEO strategy is doing. The only way to do that is to incorporate tracking into your web design from the get-go. There are a number of options available to you to accomplish this goal but none will work if you do not start off using them.
5. Do not forget about meta descriptions. This is an often overlooked area for a number of businesses. Creative meta descriptions that are relevant and interesting can make a big difference in the success of your website. Keep in mind that search engines are not fans of repetition in content. You want to repeat ideas but not the same wording. That is why your meta content should be unique.
6. Take care with your URL names. URLs with lots of random characters are not as easily indexed as ones that are more coherent. Your URL names should mirror the titles of the pages. Longer URLs that more understandable by people and search engines work better than shorter ones made up of random characters or numbers.
7. Do not forget to label your images.Images are great for a lot of reasons but many people overlook their descriptions when developing their content. Search engines may not look at your images but they will register the keywords in the descriptions. This is a simple, effective, and useful way to use your keywords or phrases.

Having your website pop up at the top of search results is the “Holy Grail” for everyone these days. There are real reasons for this. Sites that pop up organically at the top of a search are typically viewed a lot more than those that do not. The company to snag that first spot on an organic Google search will get a full 32.5% of the traffic share. These seven tips can help you get noticed with more traffic on your website.