SEO - Is my website “search engine friendly”?
“Search engine friendly” web sites have optimized the designs, menus, URLs, content management systems, blogs, and shopping carts in order to improve their rank with search engines. SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords.
Research shows that almost 80% of web traffic to websites is initiated from search engines with up to 30% of traffic coming from organic searches. Page ranking is of key importance given recent research that around 70% of the online searchers/users never go beyond the second return results page or SERP (Search Engine Result Pages). With search engines continuously making improvements on the relevancy of returned results to maximize the users’ experience, being on top or at least the first page has never been as important.
What good is a great idea, product, or service if no one knows it exists? Here are a few essential characteristics that make a search engine friendly website. Following these key tips will get you noticed and ranked high by search engines.
Use Keywords:
Use phrases relevant to you and/or your company. More specific terms for your specific market lead to greater value and results due to better targeting. Keep in mind what people would search for to find your product or service?
Use these key words in the content of the website and URLs. Keep in mind When writing content for the website…keep in natural, do not try to over populate the website with keywords that would not naturally flow into the sentences.
How to choose Keywords:
- Look at competitors’ websites
- Make a list of terms your audience would search for to find your products/services
- Use free tools such as WordTracker that will tell you the words people use to search - and its popularity.
Utilize Blogs:
Blogs allow you to have fresh content which encourages the search engine to “crawl” your page. The open template of the blog offers an easy solution in making your site search engine friendly. Superior functionality of blog platforms allow you to customize title tags, meta descriptions, related posts, etc …
Build links to other sites:
When linking to other sites, make sure they are sites of authority and in good standing with search engines. beware of spammy sites!
Blogs are are great for building links through comments and trackbacks. Joining communities and conversation in your area of expertise can boost your online reputation, always post with relevant and useful information.
Where to get links:
- Directories
- Link exchange
- Press releases
- Forums - make sure you post relevant and useful comments
- Buy Links
If you think increasing web traffic and improving quality of leads would be beneficial to your business, please contact us for free web analysis contact us…