So you’ve finally built your website and created some killer content that you want to show off to everybody. However, despite all your efforts, you don’t seem to be getting the much needed traffic that you rightfully deserve. Appealing to the search engines may seem like an impossibly difficult task, but truth is that being seen on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) isn’t all that difficult.
In fact, there are many simple and manageable steps that you can easily implement to get your chance in the spotlight. Here are five basic tips on how to gain better visibility on the search engines.
Set Your Goals, Targets and Metrics
This first step can set the foundation of your site and the success of your SEO campaign. It is important to set your goals and your target audience so that you can better measure the success of your business. Be sure to ask yourself questions like “Who exactly is your target market?”, “Is my content properly addressing their needs?”, “How else can I promote my product/service?”
After answering these questions, you can then go about measuring your success by adding your site to Google Analytics. You can easily track vital information like traffic sources, keywords used by visitors to find your site, and other strategic data that you can study to plan out the future of your campaign.
Create Targeted Keywords
Finding the right keywords that are relevant to your site is a basic necessity that you need to establish from the get go. You need to create a list of keywords and other related terms that encapsulate your site and whatever product or service that it offers. Completing this list requires you to be familiar with your market and what terms users type in when searching. You can get feedback from your clients, industry peers, and other companies if you’re not sure about these related terms.
You can also try using keyword research tools like the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. You can use these types of tools to get an idea about which keywords are frequently searched and how competitive they are. You can build and branch out your keyword list from here.
Search-Friendly On-Page Optimization
Dressing up your site to make it SEO-friendly is something that site designers should always keep in mind. Here is a short checklist of items that you need to setup to ensure that your site is
- Create an XML sitemap and robots.txt file, and then submit it to the major search engines. This makes it easier for bots to crawl through your site and see which pages you want indexed.
- Include your keywords in your page titles and ensure that they are relevant to the topic being discussed on the page.
- Make sure that your meta tags and descriptions exist for each page.
- See if each image has a proper description and ALT tag affixed to it.
- Check if the load time on each page isn’t too long. Try to optimize for speed if it loads too slow.
Write Good Content Relevant to Your Site
Creating good content doesn’t necessarily mean writing award-winning pieces or pages upon pages of long, drawn out documentation. As long as your content is relevant to what your site is about and it addresses your visitor’s needs, either through a service you provide or by answering their inquiries, then you’re doing it right. Also, check to see if you have any duplicate content on your site. Any duplicate content puts you at risk and might get your content flagged by the search engines.
Getting your site noticed is just the beginning of any successful SEO campaign. These tips should give you the initial push that you need to get the ball rolling and give you that much needed ranking boost that you’re looking for.
