We all know that search engine optimisation (SEO) is the lifeblood of any successful website. So if you want any chance of ranking in the search engine results pages (serps) then you need to optimise your website.
Increased rankings mean more traffic and more traffic means greater sales and conversions –so long as both your off-site and on-site SEO is up to scratch. So here are 20 tips to make sure that your SEO is in tip-top shape:
- Google Analytics: Sign up to Google Analytics so you can monitor your site’s performance over time.
- Web Master Tools: Sign up to Web Master Tools and check out how Google views your site.
- Keyword research: Make sure you know the keywords visitors use to find your site. Keep an eye open for ‘buying keywords’ and keywords with high volume.
- Google Planner: Use Google Planner for keyword research or investigate other paid keyword tools.
- Avoid keyword stuffing: Don’t overuse your keywords, instead make sure your content is easily readable and grammatically correct.
- Title Tags: Did you know that you can customise your title tags? Go one step further and use your most high converting keywords in your title tags and watch your traffic grow.
- Meta Descriptions: If you ignore writing your Meta Descriptions, you are leaving money on the table. Add some high volume keywords and you are good to go!
- H1 Tags: Don’t forget to use your keywords in the page title and make the title enticing to your visitors.
- Alt tags: This is one tip that most people forget and it is a great place to include more high converting keywords.
- Internal links: Make sure to link from your home page to lots of internal pages and vice versa.
- Sitemaps: A sitemap makes it easier for spiders to crawl your site and you want your site indexed frequently, so Google can see your updated content.
- Search-friendly URLs: Get rid of the all those numbers and letters you see so often in unoptimised URLs and make them both search engine and user friendly.
- Content: Write content that is easy to read, interesting and engaging to the viewer.
- Add new content: Google likes to see fresh content on websites, as this is one way to measure the popularity of your website.
- Back links: Back links from high authority sites will help to increase your rankings.
- 404 errors: Keep on top of 404 errors as if you have too many of these and Google is not happy!
- Broken links: Make sure that all internal and external links are working as too many broken links (and 404 errors) indicate a site that is neglected.
- Blogs: If your content naturally does not need to be updated very often, the easy fix is to have a weekly blog.
- Social Shares: Add social sharing buttons to your website, so visitors can share your interesting content across their networks.
- Duplicate content: Make sure that your pages do not have duplicate content and that you do not copy other people’s content. Google does not look kindly on this type of behaviour, but it loves unique content.
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