12 Fundamental Tips for SEO To Increase the Number of Visitors to Your Website
The amount of information about SEO or Search Engine Optimization is endless. It can be easy to get lost in the plethora of information you can find on SEO. This important website marketing strategy has been proven to enhance your audience’s experience on your website, as well as draw them there in the first place. Before SEO your website might have never reached your audience when they searched on Google and the other search engines; but now, SEO targets your website’s key words so specifically that it is near impossible that your audience won’t be reached. Here are some of the most important tips for SEO today.
1. Know Your Topic
Your website needs to have a topic with content that people can find. This concept sounds simple enough, but you need to know what your topic is so you can optimize SEO to its full potential. If you aren’t correlating your topic with the right SEO strategies, you could be attracting the wrong audience. That being said, although it’s the simplest concept, it’s a crucial aspect when utilizing SEO.
2. Use SEO for Individual Pages, Not Just Your Homepage
One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that you only need to utilize it for your homepage. The information your audience is looking for isn’t always on your homepage. What the visitor is looking for could be found on one of your website’s individual pages. Instead of making the visitor search your entire website for what they are looking for, when you use SEO for all your pages, the visitor can be taken right to the page they need.
3. Develop a List of Key Phrases
Before making your list of key phrases that relate to your website, you need to understand what your specific audience is searching for. Consider what they would search for when using a search engine to find what your website offers. Now, compile a list of key words they would use to find your website. Make sure your keywords are simple and words that your audience would use when searching the web. Refrain from using jargon that your audience wouldn’t use. These keywords will become what appears when visitors search for your site, so make sure they are relevant to what your website is about. Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to help you with this.
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4. Utilize Webmaster Tools
Webmaster tools can be very helpful when wanting to get more traffic to your website. Search engines such as Google and Bing have Webmaster tools that are easy and free to use. Through these tools you can see what keywords websites are already using and what keywords tend to bring in the most people to websites. When using Webmaster you can also check your websites search traffic and analyze how many people are visiting your site daily.
5. Sign Up for an Analytics Account
Similar to Webmaster, analytics can help you inspect your website’s statistics, traffic and more! The most widely used analytics service is Google Analytics. Through Google Analytics you can discover how many people are finding and engaging in your website through search engines. Not only are you getting a number of search engine visitors, but you can also find out what people are doing on your website when they get there. Free web services such as Webmaster and Google Analytics are free and help and grow websites so there is no reason not to take advantage of these amazing resources.
6. Know How Your Pages Appear to Search Bots
Different Search Engines may view your site differently. You want to make sure that your website is consistent and appears the same on each browser. One tool you can use for this is Webmaster. With this tool, you can see how your website appears to visitors in search engines such as Google and Bing. This makes sure your website is consistent when using all search engines and browsers. Don’t forget to test this for each individual page within your website!
7. Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Friendly
Having a mobile friendly site is one of the most important tips for SEO. Nowadays, people are using their phones constantly, which is why mobile compatibility for websites is so crucial. To have a successful website your site needs to be computer AND smart phone friendly. It is important for you to know how many of your visitors are coming to your website via mobile devices. You can find out an exact percentage of mobile visitors your website gets through your Google Analytics account as well as how it compares to computer and tablet visitors. It is important to distinguish between mobile and computer users when it comes to website visits. How do you know if your website is mobile compatible? You can use Google’s free mobile friendly tester to find out. Once Google verifies your website, they will tag it as mobile friendly. This will also make your website appear in more mobile searches instead of just web searches. Another important thing to note is to avoid using flash for videos on your website. Instead, use html 5 player – this works on both computers and mobile devices whereas flash just works on certain devices and certain browsers. Or you can use YouTube videos which are viewable on everything.
8. Use Responsive Web Design
Using Responsive Web Design, or RWD, is a great way to guarantee that your website looks great on every device whether it is a tablet, laptop, or Iphone. RWD provides the optimal viewing and interaction experience. It includes easy reading, convenient navigation, and a limited amount of scrolling and resizing. The important thing to remember about RWD is that what your website looks like on a phone will be the same layout and design on a computer. You will save tons of time and energy coding for both computer and mobile when you choose RWD.
9. Concentrate on Page Performance
The first thing you should do when analyzing your page performance is measure your page load speed. Slow web pages are annoying to visitors and often make them leave and search for something else, so you want to make sure your website is fast and efficient. When measuring your page load speed, you want to know your page’s Time to First Byte (TTFB). Google recommends your website to have a <200 ms TTFB.
10. Analyze and Fix Slow Page Loading
You can check your website’s load speed through Google Page Speed. Through Google Page Speed you will find out what areas or aspects of your website are causing the slow speeds. Google Page Speed will give you suggestions on how you can fix your website and alternatives for a faster website. Once you change and fix your website you can compare and find out how your website has improved in speed.
11. Measure Organic Search
What is your search intent for your visitors? Do you want them to buy a product? Download a link? Watch a video? Whatever your intent is, you want to know if your visitors are converting to outcomes that you want. You also want to measure how many of these visitors are organic, which means they didn’t come to your website because they saw an advertisement, instead they came to your site because your site correlated with their search terms. You can easily find and analyze this information through Google Analytics.
12. Fix Any Problems and Execute Strategies
Through this list of tips for SEO you probably have noticed something you could improve about your SEO strategy. SEO is all about driving people to your website and accumulating results. As long as you follow these tips for SEO your website will increase in visitors and accumulate the results that you want. To put SEO in the simplest terms possible, the higher SEO ranking you have results in more people finding your site which results in more and better outcomes for your website.
Contact NuZoo for help with SEO on your website.