The biggest goal for today’s businesses is the increase website ranking on search engines by judicial use of SEO in East Bay methods. Achieving a top ranking in major search engines allows a business to draw in more potential customers and expand public knowledge of the brand, product, or service. While it is possible to pay for SEO, there are a variety of things a business webmaster can do to increase SEO for free.
- Do some research. This is one of the most important things you can do to improve your ranking. Knowing what it is you are trying to accomplish it, and how others have accomplished similar goals, as well as what sort of words or phrases fit best, will go a long way toward meeting your goals in this area.
- Focus on a keyword or key phrase. A lot of people start with a long list of keywords that they want to rank on. This is counterproductive. Choose the one word or phrase that best you’re your particular niche, product, or service. A tool such as Google Keyword Planner can be useful for determining the one that will best serve your business. Do consider using a long-tail key phrase – one that includes, possibly, your location or a key specific area of your business.
- Optimize. Remember that at least half – probably more – of your visitors will be using a mobile device. Both responsiveness and load speed are essential items to which you must pay attention in order to have the best possible ranking.
- Content is king. This is a phrase that has been used for years, but it is no less true now than it ever was. Make sure your content is good quality, readable, and not duplicate. Properly dividing the content with header tags (h1, h2, etc.) and using keywords in those headers will also aid your efforts.
- Use a blog – often. It is not enough to have a blog on your site. You must regularly post new content on it for it to be helpful to your SEO efforts. Fresh, quality text that is unique and interesting is what your goal should be for blog posts. Include your keywords, but do not just stuff them in – make them fit naturally into the text.
- Use keywords everywhere. Use them in the page titles – and make each page title fit its page, uniquely. Use them in the header. Name image files with keywords and use the alt text inside the image tags to describe the image – with keywords. Make sure your blog post URLs use the post title rather than a random set of numbers.
- Meta data. The meta tags for description and keywords have been around for a long time. Some people say that they are no longer relevant, but that is not true. Many search engines still look at the description meta tag for the synopsis displayed with the search result.
- Fix 404 errors. If a page is missing on your site, it throws a 404 error and too many of these will definitely mess up your ranking. Either remove the links, or recreate the pages, whichever is better for your business. Bad links on your pages are a detriment to ranking.
- Internal links are important. A site map that lists – and links to – every page on your site is very handy. If each page can link to others on your site, that is even better. And if every page can link to every other page, without being unwieldy, then that is the best option, as far as search engines are concerned.
- External links, both outgoing and incoming. Your content should link to credible sources in order to increase your own credibility. Additionally, other credible sources – and individuals – linking to your content will both increase traffic and increase ranking. Be sure to make use of social media both for sharing your content and for building relationships with others who will be more likely to share your content. Word of mouth is still the best way to advertise!
While there is no way to guarantee a top ranking in search engines, using these tips is sure to aid your efforts to strengthen your SEO in East Bay for your business website.