Unless your website is found by your audience, you can never consider it a success. That’s why many website owners are trying to learn the best SEO techniques. That’s a good start. But just so you know, these techniques are dynamic and could change in a snap of a finger. Your SEO strategy might work now but could be obsolete in a few months.
In this article, we listed down the most updated techniques for creating SEO-friendly websites. Waste no time in implementing these so you can stay ahead of the competition. More online traction means more profit for the business.
Stages of SEO
Before we talk about the specific SEO tactics, you must know the different stages. We all know that ranking a website is no easy feat. It could be tedious, and it should be an ongoing process.
Research
This involves studying the market situation and learning the best keywords for your business and industry. There are tools that could help you with this. However, analyzing keywords and knowing which ones to use should be done by someone with experience.
Site Optimization
Using the data you’ve gathered, this stage involves implementing the strategies to improve your website’s overall structure. It’s also where you work on your link-building tactics. This is not an overnight task, and in fact, it could take several weeks to finish. A dedicated team for your website is encouraged if you wish to see results.
Promotion
And it doesn’t stop there. You must proactively market or promote your website to your target audience. This is where paid ads and social media marketing come in.
Most business owners would spend hundreds of dollars on social media ads without even making their website SEO-friendly first. If this is the path you wish to take, there’s a huge chance that your promotion will not work. If you must know, an SEO-friendly website means you also have to work on its UX design or how seamless your users can navigate through each page and menu.
If you promote your website without making it user-friendly, it will have a high bounce rate that can further place your website at the back of the competition.
Maintenance
As we’ve said, SEO techniques could change fast. And if you are not on the lookout for these updates, you will lose your ranking immediately. Regular website maintenance should be in place to implement changes and to make necessary adjustments.
Tips for an SEO-Friendly Website
But even with the fast-changing rules of SEO, there are a few techniques that have remained constant over the years. And that’s what we are going to talk about in this section.
Never Undermine the Power of Content
Search engine spiders crawl your content. And when you provide high-quality information on your website, these spiders will determine what your page is all about.
Here’s what we noticed in recent years. Most websites contain fluff information or articles that do not hold value. It’s a desperate attempt to trick search engine spiders by keyword stuffing. If you will read the content as a whole, it makes little to no sense. That can turn off your online visitors, and your bounce rate could affect your ranking.
The best approach is to combine the relevant keywords and place it organically on your content. And before you write anything, do your research and find the right angle, so you have something new to offer the market.
Make it your objective to provide value to your followers. Think of them first instead of trying to win search engine crawlers. As they say, write for humans.
Use Headings
No matter how much value your content has, structuring it in such a way that is easy to digest is a must. And you can do that with a simple technique – use headings. Also, you must take note of the hierarchy. The bigger the header is, the more important it should be.
Using the right headings is like hitting two birds with one stone. First, it works best for your readers since they will be more enticed to read your content from top to bottom. Second, search engine crawlers can easily determine the core content of your web page through headings.
Add Keyword-Rich Meta Tags
Never leave your meta space empty. Likewise, work within the recommended number of characters. For example, your meta titles should be under 70 characters. For the meta description, you can write around 120 characters.
When you are creating your page titles, use words that can clearly describe what you are offering.
Link Back to Credible Websites
You would often read from SEO articles that adding links to your blog posts is a good strategy. But what you might not know is that you need to add quality links. These should be from an authority site, provide useful information, and of course, must work. Sometimes, there are links that are redirected to a new URL, and what you might be using will show an error. This is the importance of regular website audits.
Optimize Your Image
Years ago, images did not play a huge role in SEO. But search engines are now more sophisticated. And in fact, image search is on the rise. That means, you must also work on your photos. Make sure to use the right format and size as it could also affect your page’s speed, which can ultimately help with the user experience. Here’s a quick guide.
- JPEG for photos
- PNG for graphic
- SVG for logos
Also, you must add ALT text to your images since search engines are still not capable of reading an image. But there are talks that this could be in the near future. So we also need to look out for that.
Shorten Your URLs
As a rule of thumb, make sure that your URLs are short and concise. Yet, it should still clearly tell your audience and crawlers what it is about. Here’s an example from Penji.
When they wrote a blog post entitled ‘Email Design Best Practices for Marketers and Small Businesses,’ they did not include the entire title on the URL. Instead, they created a simpler one, which you can find from the link.
It’s easier to understand. The keywords are there. And you can quickly copy and paste, which increases the chance of getting shared.
Conclusion
To make an SEO-friendly website, you should not treat it as a stand-alone project with a definite deadline. It’s a continuous task to help your business grow. More often than not, SEO strategies can change without prior notice from search engines. You need to observe how your website is performing and analyze what improvements are to be made.
