Search engine optimization, SEO, is the process of making sure your website gets traffic by being displayed prominently on different search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo. Having relevant content that users are searching for will help you get a coveted spot for free. You can purchase paid ads, but that’s a different subject.
So, how do I make sure people can find my site?
There’s a lot that goes into professional SEO work, but we will give you a few tips on what you can do to make sure you’re getting the most out of your website.
Newer versions of WordPress, the CMS platform we use to build our custom websites, comes with decent SEO out of the box, without much effort needed. That’s part of what makes it our preferred platform. However, every tool needs a few extra tips like the following to give you a competitive edge.
- Start a blog. Blogging on your website not only increases your reach online but also allows you to express your ideas, strategies, services and more in more detail and engagement. The most important part is that the information is relevant to your brand, services you provide, and that you continue writing consistently. The more Google see’s your content, the more viewers will see your website for what they’re looking for.
- Install an SEO plugin. We mentioned that WordPress works well out-of-the-box with SEO. However, it’s not perfect or actively provides everything for you. This is where an SEO plugin comes into play such as Yoast SEO, All In One SEO, etc. These plugins assist you in making the right choices about your SEO and notify you possible errors or issues on your website.
- Use alt tags for images and videos. One of the most missed opportunities in SEO is the lack of correct alternate tags for your images. First of all, alt tags for images is a must to make your content accessible for those with disabilities. Secondly, images aid in the context of your writing and search engines needs this to be able to understand what the image is about or in reference to.
- Submit Your Website. Although not a 100% requirement, submitting your website’s sitemap to each search engine will aid in their discovery of your pages and website structure. In addition, they will inform you of any possible HTML or structure errors.
- Fast and Secure Website and Hosting. Making sure your website is fast as possible, on a secure hosting environment and protected with an SSL certificate (HTTPS) will provide reassurance to your customers and viewers that you go the extra mile to protect their identity and privacy. In addition, using an SSL certificate on your website gives you favor with Google ranking.
The above is just a small sampling of tips for SEO improvements for your website. There are many more of which you should check out such as those from moz.com or other SEO improvement tools from Google Search Console.
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