While search engines are always improving and updating their search algorithms to
create a better user search experience, there are a number of ways that you can ensure
your website is doing all that it can to rank higher in search engine results. Search
engine optimization is not something you can set-and-forget. You should be continually
revisiting and assessing your SEO strategy to see what you can do to improve your
ranking.
Even though the search engine algorithms which determine rankings change often,
there are still tried and true SEO methods that are proven to help you rise higher in
the rankings throughout these changes.
SEO Best Practices:
- Focusing on Website Security: Online security is of the utmost importance
today when it comes to your website. If your website isn’t secure, most people
will likely stay away from it. Search engines are now able to determine whether
or not a site is secure or not, and will place secure websites higher than ones
that are not. Your website host or website manager can help determine the best
type of security to implement with your website. Many of today’s online sites
utilize a secure socket layer (SSL), which incorporates the HTTPS “secure”
protocol, rather than HTTP. - Website Speed: Search engines regularly monitor website speed, and will
always rank high speed websites over ones that take time to load. With many
users having the capabilities to search the web through mobile platforms, website
speed is crucial to ensuring that your site ranks in search results. There are
many ways that you can improve your website’s speed and load time, such as
compressing image size, removing outdated code, or implementing plugins (with
WordPress sites) to cut down on lag. - Ensure User-Friendliness: User experience and your site’s ability to be easy to
use is important when it comes to search engines viewing your site as trusted
and reputable. Factors such as bounce rate can give you an idea about whether
or not your site is easy to navigate for users. Broken links or unappealing design
can cause users to leave quickly and go search for the information they’re
looking for elsewhere. - Have a Keyword You Want To Rank For? Remember To Use It In Your Content!:
Making sure that you incorporate a given keyword that you want to rank for into
your site content is crucial. This helps tell the search engine that your site can
provide users with information on the content connected to the keyword. A site
that incorporates a keyword into many of its pages will be viewed and ranked
higher to a search engine than one that only uses it once. - Be Original: Remember to be original with your meta descriptions, title tags, and
content in general. Producing original content for your site on a regular basis will
help show the search engine that you can provide knowledge and helpful
information to users amid a variety of other sites. - Don’t Be Afraid Of Long Content: Many people don’t realize this, but search
engines love long, informative content. If you look through the top pages on a
given search engine result, you’ll likely find that these high ranking websites
include a variety of long and informative pieces of content. Longer content also
gives you more room to incorporate the keywords that you want to rank for into
your writing. - Title Tag Optimization: It’s important that you remember to include any of your
target keywords in your website’s title tag. Title tag optimization is a great starting
point that helps give your website priority for a searched keyword. - Don’t Forget Images: Did you know that you can optimize the images on your
site? It’s quite simple too. Using descriptions with image file names can help you
incorporate keywords associated with your images. Image alt text can help
describe to the search engine what the image depicts. Remember that search
engines can’t see pictures like you do, they can only read the code or text that
make up your website. - The Useful Of Internal Links: Search engines love to see that a website has
internal links. If you can link to the main content pages or viewed pages on your
site, you can help improve and increase the ranking of that main page. You can
also include keywords within your internal links to help tell the search engine
what page you’re directing to, and what content is on that page. - Building Backlinks: Backlinks help tell the search engine that other websites
trust your site and the content that you produce. It’s important that you have
backlinks from reputable, trusted sites, rather than just any old site. Low ranking
websites or sites of poor/low quality will actually go against your SEO efforts
when it comes to site ranking with search engines.
With these SEO practices in mind, you can work to ensure that you and your website
are doing everything you can to rank higher in search engine results. When your site is
properly optimized, producing keyword-rich content on a routine basis, and safe and
secure, search engines will see your site as a trusted resource, and you should find that
there will be more traffic coming to your website.