Back to SEO Basics

With regards to search engine optimization, there is no easy fix. There is no one way to shoot straight to the top of rankings and stay put. Anyone who tells you otherwise is pulling your leg. SEO requires you to continually be proactive, listen to the latest news regarding strategy, and be willing to wait for results. While there is no wonder strategy out there, there are several practices you can use on your website to improve optimization.

Improve Page Speed & Load Time

If your website is slow to load, you can bet that it will take search engines longer to crawl your pages. This can only hurt you, not to mention that slow loading times are a turn off to customers. If visitors are clicking around on your website, but the pages are taking too long to load, it’s almost guaranteed they will go somewhere else. Your website needs to be able to load in seconds. If you are unsure about your site, there are several free tools available, such as Google’s page speed insight tool, that will show you what needs fixing in order to get your website up to speed.

Content Is For Your Audience, Not the Search Engines

It should be pretty obvious that your website needs to have quality content that is of interest to your visitors. We cannot stress enough that content needs to be written for the people visiting your site, not the search engines. There’s no magic formula to follow. Simply include relevant content that is well written, personable when called for, and interesting enough that your visitors want to keep returning to your site.

URL Consistency

If your site is being linked to, make sure to keep it consistent in every occurrence. 

Creative Blog Posting

The whole point of including content and blog posts on your website is to attract readership. So when posting a blog, make sure to have a creative title that will stand out and make the reader want to click to read more. Remember, there are plenty of options on every page of the search results, and you want to make sure that your title is the one to stand out and be read.

Don’t Stop Building Links

Link building has not died the quiet death some like to think. It is alive and well and a very useful tool that search engines use to help determine the rank position of a web page. There are, however, good and bad ways to go about link building. Make sure you choose the path that will deliver you great links without going down the path of automated and spam link building. If you are unsure of the link, don’t use it. 

Keep Your URLs Clean

Search engines need to be able to read URLs easily, so don’t let yours get bogged down in long parameters and numbers. Clean URLs also look a lot more appetizing to your visitors as well. 

What NOT to do: www.thespot.com/blog/81828474565657647-2112

What TO do: www.thespot.com/blog-post

Clearly the second choice looks the best and not only will search engines be able to read this version easier, but it will pull a higher click through rate from potential visitors. 

SEO is hard work, but don’t lose faith. Sometimes it’ the basic practices that can make the most difference to your site. Once you have the basics mastered, it’s quite easy to take the next step in your SEO strategy campaign.