You have just created a beautiful website for your new business, and you are ready to “launch” it? Before you start submitting it to Google, here are 10 simple tips to increase your chances of ranking well, without investing in a too pricey SEO strategy.
1- Always prioritize your website usability
Google will take into account elements such as duration of visits on your site, bounce rate, pages viewed… to rank your website. So it is crucial in the first place to make sure your visitors will enjoy their experience and come back. You must provide a good quality of content, a nice and readable presentation, a fast page load speed, simplicity of navigation (never more than 3 clicks to deepest level).
2- Carefully choose your URL (Domain name)
It must me simple, with no special characters, include your business name and, if possible, show what your website is about (interior design, coaching, jewellery….).
3- Carefully select your keywords
Exploring Google results/ranking for similar websites, think about how your reader might search for each specific page of your website. Focus on a list of 10 main keywords, relevant for your business/customers. But avoid very popular keywords as it will be too difficult to rank well for them. Write a keyword phrase for each page and try to repeat this phrase several times throughout the page.
You can use Google Trends to explore more about keywords and find inspiration with related topics or queries
http://bit.ly/2s6Pysy
4- Write impactful titles and descriptions for each page
Google robots will read them and use them to rank your site. These are the informations websurfers will see once your website will rank. It will influence them to click and visit your website. So they must accurately and clearly describe what your business does, and include your main keywords.
5- Add descriptions to your images
Google can’t read images, but text only. First of all you must name the images you upload to your website using keywords related to your business, and not a name like IMG2033.jpg. Then you must add “Alt text” to accurately describe what is shown on each image or icon, using as well your business name and/or your keywords.
6- Structure your site with a text hierarchy
This will help Google to understand and digest your content better. Each page should have one relevant title (header 1) to describe the content, using again your keywords. Then the texts should be structured in Header 2, Header3…
7-Use Anchor text to guide your readers
Anchor text is a clickable link to other pages of your website, preferably containing our keywords (and not just “click here”), to help users navigate through your website pages. Attention though, do not use it excessively!
8- Develop outbound links to relevant and useful websites
They must add value to your website’s content and offer more information for your visitors. Regularly check that these links are not broken or outdated. At the same time ask third-party websites to add a link to your website.
9- Make sure your website is mobile optimised
An increasing number of people browse the web on their mobile devices, do not risk loosing traffic with a website that is not mobile friendly.
10- Update your website regularly
For Google, it is one of the best indicator that your website content is relevant.
These 10 tips will help your website to rank better on search engines, but might not do the trick of ranking you in the top 10, especially for very popular searches/keywords. You might have to invest time and money in a more elaborate SEO strategy including optimisation, buying keywords on Google, link building, content and social media marketing, increasing conversion rates… If you need help for the promotion of your website, please contact me to talk about your project!
Communication Consultant, with over 15 years of combined Communication and Marketing experience, bilingual in English and French, I can contribute to your communication projects (graphic design, newsletters, advertising campaigns, media planning, market surveys, PR, promotion, product launches, events management, webdesign, social media…).