Search engine algorithms are always changing, but you don’t have to change your content to increase your Search Engine Optimization ranking for your web sites.
There are many things you can do by simply tweaking and organizing the content you already have to increase your ranking and climb up the search engine ladder—and you don’t need to be a web master or digital marketing guru to do them.
- Make sure your site is mobile friendly. The vast majority of users tap into search engines on their mobile devices and, if your site is not responsive, it will count against you. Go to Google’s webmaster tools to find out if your site is mobile friendly.
- Use title tags. Title tags show up in the browser bar on a web page as well as on the search results page in Google. You can use a tool like Yoast (if you’re using Wordpress) to identify and optimize them with keywords, which brings us to the next point:
- Leverage your keywords in your content. Google’s Keyword Planner has help here, too. With this tool you can enter a url and find a list of keywords relevant to the page. These are great words to sprinkle throughout your blogs, on your web page and in your title tags to give your site a little SEO lift.
- Change your formatting. Search Engines like Google factor headings, lists and links into account. Consider them each like a form of headline that attracts attention—both from readers and search engines.
- Fix broken links. Nothing is more irritating to customers than clicking on a link that goes nowhere. Search engines can detect this, too. Again, Google is on your side with this. In their webmaster tools, go to Crawl > Crawl Errors, select Not Found and then click on a URL. If you see missing pages, go to that page on your site and update the link.
- Build links between pages on your site and blogs. Make sure to connect your content to other relevant content throughout your site pages. When you blog about your services, link back to your home page or the specific page that describes those services. When you reference other blogs, link to those, too.
- Make sure your site is fast enough (see what we did there?)
- Make your name, address and phone number easy to find. One tip here: when you list your name, address and phone number, make sure you do it in text form, not as a jpg or other type of graphic. Search engines read graphics differently (if at all) and may miss this vital bit of information. Also, find, claim and update your name, address and phone number on review sites, industry sites, chamber of commerce site or the Better Business Bureau sites—anywhere you may be listed.
- Speaking of review sites, do everything you can (short of purchasing or bribes) to get reviews and recommendations for your business. The more you have and the better they are, the higher your Search Engine Ranking will be.
- Dump static content. If you have pages that don’t offer much information, are static and don’t attract much traffic, get rid of them. It’s better to have a smaller, more active site than to have one filled with irrelevant fluff (the modern day equivalent of the padded middle-school literature essay).
What do you do to increase your Search Engine Optimization rankings? Let us know in the comments!