SEO – At the Very Least Do These 3 Things
Tapping into the power of the internet is one of the best things you can do to promote your company. Take a minute to reread that sentence because it’s one of the most important things to understand in our computer driven society. Creating an online presence (i.e. your own website) is a very important step for your business, but it’s just the first in a series of steps you can take to establish your company as a leader in your industry and dominate your competition.
Whether you understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a little, a lot or have never heard of it before, it is one of the best things you can do for your website. SEO sounds a little confusing but it’s a simple concept, it’s basically the optimizing of your website so the main three search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) can find your site and will rank you higher in a search than your competition. Why do you want this? The higher you are on a search engine, the more likely a potential customer is going to click on your site over the lower ranking ones. Think about your own searches, take for instance “homemade ice cream”. If you want to make ice cream you’re probably going to click on one of the first recipes that comes up in the search, rather than skipping to page five and randomly picking a website from that page.
So now that we understand why SEO is important, what three simple things can you do to make your website more search engine friendly?
Identify Your Keywords
Keywords were once the secret key to SEO, the field is much more complicated now, but it’s still the skeleton that holds everything together. Think about your business and what words are most important, what words would people search for when looking for you? In our example above the keywords ice cream, homemade ice cream, ice cream recipe, and homemade ice cream recipe would be a great place to start. There are tools online to help you determine how often these keywords are used, Google Ad Words Keyword Tool is an excellent example.
Keyword/Phrase in your Title
The title of your page is very important to search engines, so it is essential that you include your keyword or key phrase in the title for each page. Labeling a page as Susie’s Random Recipes Number 1 may mean a lot to you, but to your audience and the search engines it is pretty useless. Instead, use a descriptive title with your exact keyword or phrase like, Susie’s Quick and Easy Homemade Ice Cream Recipe. Optimize every page of your website by creating titles that follow this SEO suggestion. Each page of your website may have different keywords and will have a different title, keep this in mind throughout the process.
Keywords in Content
Keywords are almost as important in the content of your website as they are in the title so use them in a liberal but logical manner. This is also a great opportunity to work in some of the other keywords and phrases you found in your research that apply to your site but aren’t your top picks. In our example frozen desserts may be a phrase that you’d like to insert into your copy a couple times as it relates to your topic and may draw some viewers that you wouldn’t reach simply by repeating the phrase homemade ice cream. You may also find in your research that people search for both phrases ice cream recipe and ice cream recipes. Now you have the opportunity to use both of those phrases to attract those eyes to your site as well. Make sure your content is readable and informative overall and delivers a connection to the all-important keyword.
To sum it up, if you want to improve the traffic to your website through SEO techniques you should first select your targeted keywords. Your next step is to include the main keyword for each page in its title. And finally, include your keywords in your page content so you deliver on the promised keyword information.
Need help researching what keywords you should optimize for your website? Give us a shout!
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