Do you run a business and are you wondering how you can attract more customers or readers?
Well of course, you already know that having a website is the number one requirement if you want to attract people through the internet. And investing in an online marketing expert to give you a nice website design is one thing, but making sure people find your website is another.
Website design is most effective when paired with great SEO.
Web developers often offer services from the creation of your website to making sure your business will be searchable and that your website will rank high in search engine results.
Every business with a website must aim to rank as high as possible in major search engine results because high search engine rankings translate to high visibility and, hopefully, excellent visitor traffic. Now most businesses aim to increase their online presence as a part of their growth strategy and marketing plan, however not all business owners know anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or the ways to increase search engine rankings.
Although there are many technicalities regarding SEO that can only be addressed by experts, some work can be done by you as the website owner that will significantly improve your site’s search engine ranking.
Here are 5 tips to help you.
Use links that link back to your site. One of the best ways to optimize your website is to integrate internal links in your site. This increases your site’s traffic for individual pages, in turn improving your sites standing in the ranking of search engines.
According to web marketing experts, when a website has more relevant words linking to it, search engines tend to rank the site higher in the results page when users search using those words. So, to improve your site’s search engine ranking, use links that link back to your site. This is not to be confused with “reciprocal linking.” Reciprocal linking is when two website owners decide to post each others links on their website, much like trading links.
Design a sitemap. Sitemaps are clickable links that enable users to navigate your site with ease. Experts say that when a website requires less clicks to go to a certain page within the site, the better its ranking in search engine results.
Also, a sitemap enables spiders to reach your site more easily, and will boost your page views significantly.
Use user-friendly URLs. You can modify and personalize the URLs of your site to contain keywords that are clearer and more easily understood. This way, browsers can easily go to your page, and can even more conveniently promote your site to other people.
A URL with clear keywords is also attractive to the eyes of browsers. The clearer the URL, the more page views you can expect. This translates to better rankings in the search engine results.
To give you a better understanding, consider these imaginary URLs as an example:
www.dogs.com/puppytraining/tricks
www.dogs.com/1523/s9j89-9
In this example, URL (a) is much better than URL (b) because of the clarity of the keywords that it contains.
Use image descriptions. Search engines only scan the texts in your contents, links, and titles, but not in the images. Words in the images, no matter how SEO-friendly they are, are not considered in the search engines’ ranking process. However, there is a way for you to use images as a way to improve your search engine ranking – by putting image descriptions in the text.
In the image descriptions, which will be part of your site’s text content, you should use SEO-friendly words and keywords. Putting captions on all of your images significantly increases your chances of improving your site’s performance in search engine rankings.
Limit your usage of Flash. Using Flash, Frames, or AJAX as a beautification tool for your website might provide an awesome visual effect, but it does not contribute to your search engine optimization. Flash does nothing to improve your search engine rankings. Why? Because Flash and other similar splash page decors do not link to any single pages. But if you really, really, wish to use Flash on your website, remember to put relevant text and/or navigation links with it, so it will help boost your sites traffic.
These are just basic tips, which any website user can implement to improve their site’s search engine rankings. And you can start tweaking your site yourself by following these tips and you will see a boost in your website’s SEO results.
However, if you would prefer an expert with website design experience and an understanding of SEO improvement to do this for you, contact us today for a free consultation.
