18 Nov A Checklist For Better SEO
More than 5 billion Google searches happen daily, which means search engine optimisation (SEO)—adjusting your website to boost the amount of quality traffic that comes to it—is an essential part of connecting with your audience.
When you know what boosts your position in a search result—and what pushes down your ranking—it’s easy to design and update your site for SEO. We’re here to teach you a little bit about it. use this checklist to integrate SEO into your digital marketing strategy or contact us to look after it for you.
𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬
Search engines like Google and others use formulas, called algorithms, to determine what sites to serve up in response to a search. While search engines update their algorithms regularly, there are plenty of predictable ways they’ll assess your site.
Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EAT) are among the top factors Google considers in its rankings. There are several ways to build this.
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲
Reviews, mentions in social media, links to your content from other websites, and guest posts that backlink to your website will all help your ranking. But, don’t take a shortcut and pay firms to purchase links for you—Google doesn’t approve of this practice.
𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞
Build your EAT by ensuring that Google has pertinent information about your business. Use Google My Business to manage your profile so you connect with your audience on Google Search and Maps using location data.
𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐤𝐞𝐲𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬
Keywords are words or phrases that people type into search engines to find something. All areas of your website—including page names, headlines, site copy, image captions, page descriptions, and URLs—need to include keywords in a natural way that doesn’t sound too forced.
𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞
Make sure your website is organised in a way that makes it easy for users and search engines to travel through your site and find what they’re looking for. Internal links from one page to another within your site should provide content that educates your visitor, answers a question about what you offer, or engages them in some other valuable way. Internal links give Google more clues about what your website is about, so it can send relevant visitors your way.
Feature substantial content. Create website content that’s relevant to your top keywords and hefty enough to be valuable. While punchy, skimmable content is great, keep in mind that Google wants content that solves the search intent, so pages with fewer than 200 words will not be highly ranked. If you want to add meat to your copy, be sure each page solves a problem, answers a question, or moves a visitor forward in their journey through your site.
𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬
A title tag or page tag is the “headline” for a page when it appears in search engine results pages (SERP). The words or phrases in your title tags should be specific and descriptive. Think, “Learn How to Paint Landscapes and Portraits” instead of “Painting Class.” Combining this with the meta description—a longer blurb in search results that says more about what your content provides—encourages users to click through to your website. Title tags also appear in your visitors’ web browser tabs and in social media when your content is shared.
Add alt tags. An alt tag is a text description of an image. It serves 3 important purposes. Search engines can’t interpret images, so alt tags help them identify and rank these pieces of content, improving your SEO. They also help website visitors when an image doesn’t display properly on their screen or load quickly by providing a clue about what image they should be seeing. Last, and definitely not least, alt tags are easy for screen readers to decipher, so they help with web accessibility. Alt tags should be short and descriptive—think, “paddle board on lake with smiling boy” or “chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and strawberry.”
𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞
Google prioritises mobile websites, so making sure your website is mobile friendly is critical. This means providing a visually pleasing and easy-to-use experience no matter what device someone is visiting from. Mobile sites also must load quickly on a 3G connection, render properly on any sized screen, have well-spaced site elements that users can easily tap on to take action, and feature content that’s entirely visible without having to scroll left or right.
𝐄𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬
Ideally your pages should load in under 2 seconds—less than 3 is a must. If they do, it’ll improve your search rankings. There are several things that can slow down your load time, including issues with your content management system (CMS), poorly written code, low bandwidth that can’t handle your traffic volume, or numerous large images on a page. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to test how quickly your website is loading.
𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬
Google Search Console will help you see if Google is finding and indexing all of the pages on your website to highlight places you can improve performance. It can also help you set up your own site search tracking.
𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐑𝐋 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐞
Google considers HTTPS encryption a top priority, and will show a security warning in search results if a website is not HTTPs encrypted.
𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝
When people type a query into a search engine and then make their way to your website based on the results, they’re likely to have high engagement potential. A solid website on which you layer SEO best practices will provide an experience that attracts high-potential visitors and makes them want to engage.
𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐬
We have a team dedicated to this service that work on our client’s SEO DAILY, to ensure the very best results are achieved. If it’s something you would prefer to outsource, please do reach out. We’d love to work with you.