Having a website is essential for most businesses but ensuring that it’s optimised for search engines is key to driving traffic and growth. Improving your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) will help your website rank higher in search results, bringing in more visitors organically. After all, how many of us really go beyond the first few pages of search results?
Below are some practical steps you can take to enhance the SEO of your website, and rank higher in search results.
7 Tips To Improve SEO On Your Website
1. Keyword Research
Keywords are the foundation of SEO. To optimise your website effectively, you need to know which search terms your audience is using. Start by conducting thorough keyword research to identify the phrases and words people use when searching for similar products and services.
You can use tools like Google Trends to see which search terms are gaining popularity.
SEMrush and other keyword research tools provide in-depth insights into keyword difficulty, search volume, and competitor rankings. Or you can simply conduct your own keyword research based on which subjects you want your website to be associated with.
Focus on long-tail keywords (specific phrases) as they often have less competition and can lead to higher conversion rates.
2. Optimise On-Page Elements
Once you have the right keywords, the next step is to optimise your on-page elements. This involves tweaking specific areas of your website so that search engines can better understand the content.
- Title tags: Ensure each page has a unique, descriptive title that includes your primary keyword. Make sure to use your keyword throughout your text too!
- Meta descriptions: Write compelling meta descriptions (150-160 characters) that summarise the page content while including relevant keywords.
- Headers: Use H1, H2, and H3 tags correctly. Your main title should be a H1, and subsections should use H2 or H3 tags, incorporating keywords.
- Image alt text: Optimise images by adding alt text, which helps search engines understand what the image is about.
- URL structure: Keep URLs clean, concise, and descriptive. Include keywords in URLs where possible.
3. Improve The Structure Of Your Site
A well-structured website not only improves user experience but also makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site.
- Clear Navigation: Ensure that your website’s navigation is easy to follow. A clear hierarchy with main categories and subcategories can help visitors find what they need quickly.
- Sitemaps: Submit an XML sitemap to search engines like Google to help them understand your site’s structure and discover all of your pages.
- Internal Linking: Add internal links within your site’s content to help users and search engines navigate between related pages, and link topics together.
4. Increase The Speed Of Your Site
Page speed is a critical ranking factor. If your site takes too long to load, visitors will likely leave before they even see your content, increasing your bounce rate and negatively affecting your SEO. You can fix this with the following:
- Optimise images: Compress images so they load faster without sacrificing quality.
- Use browser caching: Enable caching to reduce load times for returning visitors.
- Minimise code: Minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to reduce their size and improve page speed.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN can help reduce server response time by distributing your content across a network of servers worldwide.
5. Build Links With Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in SEO. When other reputable websites link to your content, it signals to search engines that your site is trustworthy and authoritative.
- Guest blogging: Reach out to industry blogs and offer to write guest posts in exchange for a backlink.
- Broken link building: Find broken links on other sites and offer your content as a replacement.
- Create shareable content: High-quality, valuable content is more likely to get shared and linked to, so focus on producing blog posts, infographics, and videos that provide value to your audience.
6. Monitor And Maintain Performance
Keeping your website optimised requires constant review to maintain its performance.
- Google Analytics: Use Google Analytics to track your website’s traffic, identify top-performing pages, and see how visitors interact with your site.
- Google Search Console: This tool allows you to see how your site is performing in search results, monitor issues, and submit updated sitemaps.
- SEMrush: This software can be used to provide insight into your website’s health, including broken links, keyword rankings, and backlink profiles.
Regularly audit your site for errors like broken links, duplicate content, and slow-loading pages. Fixing these issues are often quick ways to boost your SEO.
7. Repurpose Content
If you have older content that’s no longer performing well, don’t let it go to waste! Repurposing content is a smart way to keep your site fresh and improve SEO, and saves time and energy on constantly producing new content. Some ideas for how you can repurpose old content are:
- Updating old blog posts: Add new information, refresh the format, and ensure all links are up-to-date.
- Turning blog posts into videos or infographics: These new formats can attract different types of audiences and improve your reach.
Conclusion
At Intelligent Leads, our SEO experts are on-hand to help build your brand and generate leads. For more information about our end-to-end services, get in touch here.
