Optimizing your site for search engines is both essential and fundamental. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps you place your site in the top results so that it could be accessed when a person is trying to find the content it is related to. But how search engines decide which site is the best and which is not for the top results.
Well, many factors play a role in search engine optimization and in this article we are going to discuss all the things you should know about Search Engine Optimization and what certain points you need to focus on while making your website SEO friendly.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Although it may sound easy to make your site popular in quick span and get more visitors but the reality is more difficult than breaking the Da Vinci Codes. Basically, the goal of search engine optimization is to create a better and smoother user experience and help a visitor communicate effectively with your website. Build and design a website in a way that search engines would recommend it for related searches themselves. By doing this you can attract more traffic and, thus, better results.
Tips to Use while Optimizing Site for Search Engines
Making an SEO friendly site is not like waging a war against an army of Spartans as some may often think. You don’t have to slip into Sherlock Holmes’ shoes for it. Only a few things if done correctly can easily take care of what you want. Below we have listed all the points you should focus and work on. Here we go:
- Think of your website as a dish and its content as the basic ingredients. Most people focus on Social Media advertising and paid searches but the most important part of your site is its content, architecture of the information, content management and infrastructure. These are the necessary things to focus on and without them; your site even with the best of advertisement and social media marketing would be nothing but just a mess thrown into the trash. So make sure that before you go on putting the icing on the cake it has the right amount of sugar in it.
- As a matter of fact,search engines look for key points in the site content to recommend them as a relevant result for the search. So you must focus on these key points and manage your website based on these. First is the theme of the content that you have written about, then the titles, descriptions, and text of the content. Then comes the performance of your site. If it is not good enough, it loses relevancy. One of the major things is the authority of your site. If other sites link to your content or give it as a reference then most likely the search engines would recommend it. Last is the user experience which in itself is the most important part. If a visitor finds it hard to navigate around your website or it has a very high bounce rate then ranking immediately drops down in the search results.
- Even if you have all the things needed to have a perfect SEO friendly site and still have a poor traffic rate or lower result in search engines then don’t worry. You must have stuffed it with wrong practices. One of them could be the unnecessary use of keywords in the content. Forcing your keywords in the content adversely affect the rankings. Try to avoid overusing keywords as search engines only have specific amount of data storage. Also buying links from other sites is a strict no in SEO. So it is better to keep them original. Another reason for your site to be SEO unfriendly is its poor user interface. Make your site attractive and easy so that visitors could find what they are looking for easily. Also try to avoid too much adspop ups or bouncing off to another page as this will only make it harder for the user to navigate.
- Before you go on optimizing your site go through its content and try to find its relevance with your business. What is it that you are aiming for? Figure out your main goal and understand your liabilities and assets completely. Because these are the points that if you are not clear on, then you may not be able to reflect your purpose clearly and precisely. In SEO it is important to make your intentions completely clear.
- No matter how careful you are about using the keywords in the content but it is not enough. Referring to it on social media platforms like facebook, twitter, orkut, instagram and linkedin is also important. Try to use it while branding or advertising on social media or in general because the more consistent you are with the keywords the more people would search for the particular phrases you are optimizing for.
- Domain names are also necessary features of your foundation. If you use sub directory root domains then a sub domain then it is more likely that you will attract more traffic. Also use a consistent domain and keep on referring to it letter by letter. If at one place you write ‘www’ and leave it out on another then it might confuse search engines and produce different results. This could also cause other referring sites to use two different names and this will surely reduce the SEO results. When it comes to making a domain it is better advised to take up an old one. But be careful when you buy a domain as previous owner could have messed with it in some way. Other than this focus on the URL and use the keywords in it to make it SEO friendly.
- Keep your sites optimized not only for the desktops but also for mobiles and tablets and with other media platforms. For example, using videos with other rich media content in your content would increase its chances in being in the top results for searches then for plain text page. Although if you are using plain text content then optimize it properly. Like if your site uses any of the Flash or PDF’s to display the contents then make sure that you use the latest versions and practices. This will achieve you credit from the search engines.
- Meta description is a necessary part of your content. If your site does not have title, tags or metadata then it loses some of its relevancy. Although meta data is not used as much by search engines but if you use them be careful to keep it perfectly formatted and specific to your page. Duplication of the meta data would not help in Search Engine Optimization.
Conclusion
Above given points would cover the whole optimization of your site for search engines. If you could all of these right then there are ninety nine percent chances that your site would be ranked in the top results. Also keep Search Engine Optimization always in the front of other things because as you must have noticed that every step is related to other and if you skip on any one step it could lead to whole thing going wrong. This is all you should know about search engine optimization. After taking care of these things you can sit back and relax and enjoy the success of your site.
This Article is contributed by Sejal Parmar, is an enthusiastic blogger who has a passion and interest in SEO. She covers topics on SMM, SEO, social media, digital marketing, blogging and much more at Web Ratna!