Many small businesses get caught up in creating a beautiful website that clearly displays the companies products services and culture. They focus on the pictures, layout and wording used. Making the most beautiful website has no purpose if no one can find it among the millions of website on the world wide web!
It’s easy to fall victim to fads in your quest for success with search engine optimization (SEO). They’re quick fixes that sometimes offer temporary results, but ultimately end up hurting your website’s chances at ranking higher in search results. That’s why it’s so important to know current SEO best practices. It also helps to work with professionals who can navigate the tricky trends.
Research your keywords
Research keywords that are valuable and appropriate to your business. It’s important to know what your customers are looking for, and then to use that knowledge to deliver what they need.
You can attract your customers to your site by using those keywords in informative blog posts. Get a SEO Analysis done with a professional to assist you in making clear decisions.
Make your website mobile-friendly
Google has been emphasizing the importance of mobile-friendly websites for quite some time now, and with the introduction of mobile-first indexing, it’s more important than ever to have a website that looks and works great on mobile devices.
That’s why it’s important to master mobile-friendly SEO.
You want your website to perform and look as good on users’ smartphones and tablets as it does on their desktop computers. No pinching and squeezing!
Understand metadata and use it properly
Metadata refers to page and post titles and descriptions that show up on the search engine results pages when a visitor searches for a particular keyword, phrase or a term.
To follow SEO best practices, your meta titles should be 50 to 60 characters and include at least one keyword that is related to the content for that page. Your meta descriptions should be 150 to 160 characters and provide more information about the content of the page. Using a keyword or two in your meta description will boost your SEO and increase the number of click throughs you get from the search engine results pages.
Understand backlinking
Backlinking refers to getting other websites to link to your blog posts and pages. Getting backlinks from relevant, reputable websites and blogs is a major ranking factor so consider using guest blogging as part of your marketing strategy.
Don’t be afraid to link to other reputable websites that are related to your industry, another plus when it comes to search engine ranking.
Speed up your website
Nobody likes a slow website, search engines included. If your site takes longer than two seconds to load, including on mobile, you could be losing out on sales. Your ranking in the search engine results will definitely suffer.
Use a tool like Google Page Speed Insights or Pingdom Tools to find out how fast your website is and then follow their recommendations to improve the loading times.