SEO or search engine optimization is one of the best ways of promoting an online brand. By making your website Google-friendly, you are more likely to appear in the top search results for relevant keywords.
The optimization process starts from the get-go. For example, through domain brokerage, you can get just the right domain name for your brand-new website laying a foundation for everything else. Then, you need an intuitive site design that will make browsing easier for the visitors.
In this article, we will share 6 tricks for optimizing your website. Keep in mind that SEO doesn’t work overnight, but if you’re persistent enough, you can get amazing results in the long run.
1. Get the right domain name
Choosing the right name can go a long way. If the domain name corresponds with the name of a product, service, industry, or niche, your website is more likely to pop up among the top results when people browse for that particular product or service.
This is why savvy marketers buy certain domain names in advance when they notice that a new type of product will become popular. We refer to this as “domain parking.” Sometimes, marketers won’t even use the domain, but instead, they will sell it off at a later date.
2. Make an optimized, user-friendly website
Creating an online brand has never been easier. Even if you’re a newbie, there are many website builders you can utilize for this purpose.
Unfortunately, although you might like to create a visually-appealing site with lots of multimedia elements, this usually isn’t the right choice. All these images and videos make the page heavier, thus affecting the loading speed. To get the most from Google, your website needs to be optimized.
You can do this by having a simplistic design. The pages should be clean, and each one of them should open in less than 2 seconds. If your pages are slow to open, the visitors will simply close them without reading the content, thus sending a strong, negative signal to Google.
Lastly, you should follow the “three-click” rule. In other words, a visitor should be able to reach any page on your site in just three clicks. Make sure that all the URLs are properly connected, providing an ideal user experience.
3. Optimize a sitemap
Sitemaps are crucial for Google’s crawlers. When these bots reach your website, they try to find and index all the content on your website. Sitemaps give them additional information about every URL, presented in a way so that the crawlers can decipher the data.
One of the common SEO issues is that the Google robots cannot find your pages in the first place. Or, they might not understand which page to prioritize. Due to this issue, you might be missing an opportunity to rank for specific, lucrative keywords.
4. Make your website mobile-friendly
Mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor that has become increasingly important in the last few years. Nowadays, more people access the internet via their phones and mobile devices than desktop computers.
When you open certain URLs on your phone, you might see the desktop version of the page, where elements are out of position and hard to read. This is because the site wasn’t properly optimized for mobile devices.
If your website lacks this feature, its pages will get downranked by Google. Simply put, if you want to reach the top spots in the search engine, you will have to fix this issue.
5. Place emphasis on content
Although Google’s representatives have denied this several times, all the data indicates that user engagement has become one of the most important factors for determining the relevancy of a page. Things such as bounce rate, click-through rate, time spent on a page are something you need to consider.
Basically, when a person lands on your website, Google will start collecting various data pertaining to their behavior. If their interaction with your site is positive, if they browse several pages during each visit and stay on them for a while, this is a clear sign they liked your content.
6. Start link building
Links, or backlinks, are probably the strongest exterior ranking factor. If numerous websites are pointing to you, this sends a sign to Google that your site is a trustworthy, authoritative source. The company always seeks to promote relevancy and quality of web information, giving pages with lots of links a ranking advantage.
Keep in mind that not all the links are the same. One high-quality link can provide the same benefit as 100 low-tier links. In fact, having too many low-quality, irrelevant links can get you in trouble with the search engine, causing severe Google penalties.
Although link building is very important for optimization, you need to do it correctly.
