You have a website, but it doesn’t seem to show up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). What can you do to get your website to show up on the first page of Google? Search engines are the bad guy here. In fact, they tell us exactly what they need to show your website. Here is a list of the top techniques you can use to make sure your website is found. If you’re unsure if you’re missing any of these for your website, please be sure to sign up for our Site Auditor Report so we can analyze your website together.
Okay, here’s how to optimize your website for the search engines.
- Content – It’s no secret that search engines seek out relevant and high-quality content as part of the site ranking process. But did you know that the length of the page also is a factor? Google and other search engines analyze each and every page of your website, so if your site overall is lacking either quality or enough content, your site quickly loses authority within the search engines. It’s important to determine if you have any pages which have too little content..
- On Page Optmization – One of the first steps in page structure is making sure your URL includes your keyword or key phrase as close to the beginning of the URL as possible. Search engines look to your URL to figure out what your site page is all about. For example, on our site we have a page titled, SEO Services, and we created the following URL: https://www.design4dot.com/search-engine-optimization-services to best optimize the page content for search.
- Duplicate Content – Just as it sounds, duplicate content is nothing more than redundancy and search engines are quick to discover and dismiss it entirely.. Sometimes retailer write the same content on their website as the manufacturer has on its website. That is never a good idea. Each page of your website should have unique content that applies only to the subject matter of that page. Be careful of duplicate content on your website.
- Meta Tags – The Meta Title and Meta Description are the blue link and the description that appear in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This assists the visitor in making the decision to visit your website or not. The meta description reinforces the relevancy of the page content. The purpose is to help your visitor understand what that page can offer them.
- Links – There are several types of links associated with most web pages: inbound, internal and external. Inbound links may come from online directories, trade or association directories, press releases, new stories and other online sources. Inbound links to your page and content show search engines the authority of your page and relevancy of your content. This is also true for internal links. Internal linking is when you create a hyperlink to other pages on your own website. this is known on on-page SEO. This is a best practice that will help keep visitors on your website, as well as provide them more information that they seek. External links are hyperlinks that take a visitor away from your site to another site, such as a partner site, industry directory or for additional resource information. Simply request a free website audit and we will review all the links associated with your site, and also the number of links, since both factor in the ranking of your page and website.
- Images – Image ALT Tag and Image Title Tag are two more on-page elements that can contribute to your positive rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). Website pages that are only text are b-o-r-i-n-g. We are a visual society. Include images that visually describe your content (and your customers love pictures too). But you can also tell the search engines what those graphics are! Keep in mind, search engines don’t just look for images. Rather, they look for images with ‘Alt Text’. Part of our free website audit process includes a review of your images to determine if they have the proper tags. Many times, the Alt Tag includes key words so search engines understand what the image is displaying. All of these elements, when properly implemented, make a big difference for optimizing every page on your site.
When combining all these techniques, you can optimize your website for better performance in the search engines. If you need help in identifying where your website is falling short, simply request a FREE website audit to immediately identify any of the above website issues, errors and opportunities to improve on-site SEO. After receiving the website audit, contact us for a consultation to go over the results and make suggestions on how your website and SEO will be improved by creating an action plan to improve the search engine rankings of your website.
