As you know, your site should be optimized as much as possible. It improves your website’s visibility and is one of the best ways to maximize your online marketing efforts. However, knowing where to start can be overwhelming so we have put together a list of our top 12 tips to improve your SEO.
11 Ways to Improve SEO to Increase Your Website’s Visibility
Produce high-quality content
One of the most important ranking factors for a site in Google search results is content. It plays a crucial role in the position your site will occupy in search results and how users feel on your site. Make sure to regularly publish content that is useful and relevant to your audience.
Increase load speeds
When a user visits your website and it takes longer than 4 seconds to load users will typically leave your site in search of something faster, which will also impact your SEO rankings.
Ensure your website is responsive
A responsive website has the ability to adapt the design of the pages according to the viewing environment (desktop, laptop, tablet or phone) to offer users an excellent browsing experience. Not only will a non-responsive site be punished by the search engines, but users will not stay long when they can’t read the content easily.
Link to authoritative websites
External links to similar pages are an indication of relevance, which helps search engines to better understand the topic covered in that page. Also, by linking to sites which have authority within the subject matter shows search engines that your page is a source of quality information.
Optimize your images
Images are just as important as text in attracting organic traffic to your site. By using keywords as the image file name and in the alt-tag, caption, and title, you can increase the likelihood that your site will appear in image searches.
Use keywords in META titles
The META title is what appears as the title of a page in the search results and is one of the most important on-page SEO techniques. When choosing your META titles you should make sure they are short (6-7 words maximum) and the keywords are close to the beginning of the title.
Use keywords in H tags
When optimizing SEO headings (h1, h2, h3 etc), use this opportunity to tell search engines, and your visitors, what is important on your site by ensuring your keywords are present in the headers. But remember, keywords in H tags must also be included in the text found on the page. Otherwise, you can be flagged and penalized for trying to “trick” search engines.
Remove broken links
Review your site for any broken links, as they negatively impact both the user experience and your website authority. To make this task easier, you can use tools like Google Webmaster Tools and W3C Link Checker to search your site instantly, rather than manually clicking each link.
Ensure you are using HTTPS encryption
Users of your website want to know that their information will be protected. HTTPS provides a secure connection that people look for and is a requirement for most new browsers.
In addition to providing peace of mind to the user, search engines such as Google may penalize websites for not being secure, which will push you down in the rankings.
Review your site architecture and navigation
Ensure the navigation and architecture of your website is thoroughly thought out. It will improve the flow of traffic and encourage users to follow through with your calls-to-action.
Implement social sharing
The amount of social shares your content gets on social networks is a key element for SEO. This is due to the algorithms used by Google, which put a high value on social shares received from social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc). By integrating social sharing on your site you make it easy for your users to share your content and you increase your reach.
