Most businesses have some sort of website, whether it’s just an informational site that they hope to get customers from or an e-commerce site where they actually sell their goods online. While many people think the most important thing about having a website is the design and functionality, search engine optimization (SEO) is also very important. It can be difficult to understand what SEO is, so this guide will walk you through everything you need to know about optimizing your website for search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
What Is SEO?
SEO is an acronym that stands for search engine optimization, and it is important for anyone who has a website. SEO involves three major components: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
1. On-Page SEO: The On-Page SEO component of SEO refers to anything related to optimizing your site itself so that its content is relevant, useful, and high quality. This includes things like having keywords within your domain name, ensuring all of your site’s internal links are relevant.
2. Off-Page SEO: The Off-Page SEO component of SEO focuses on how others outside of your site can impact its popularity with search engines such as Google or Bing; activities include things like social media posting, getting involved in online communities focused around specific topics relevant to your niche, getting backlinks from other sites in your niche or industry, writing guest posts for other blogs within your niche or industry etc.
3. Technical SEO: The final part of SEO—and arguably most critical aspect—is called Technical SEO. It deals specifically with making sure your code is optimized so that you show up at top of search results pages (SERPs) rather than buried at the bottom. There are many aspects to technical SEO, but here is a short list of things to keep in mind when working on Technical SEO for your site:
A. What search terms do I want my site to rank for?
B. How will I make my site more valuable than competitors?
C. What steps can I take to get noticed by Google/Bing without being penalized?
Step 1) Research keywords related to your industry
You’re going to have to do some research about your target audience, products, and business. When you’re searching for keywords related to your industry or topic of interest, make sure you use multiple search engines. For example, search Google and Bing separately. You want as many suggestions as possible that will provide data on what people are interested in. Make sure you follow up by cross-referencing each word/phrase with your competition to see how it ranks. It won’t be an exact science, but it should give you an idea where certain phrases lie on popularity scales.
Step 2) Choose a keyword valuable domain name
Once you’ve figured out what your business will be, it’s time to grab yourself a valuable keyword-rich domain name. You don’t want something too generic that someone else has already taken, but you don’t want something so specific that no one will ever remember it. Be creative, research popular keywords in your industry and brainstorm some ideas. Then check if those keywords are available and use them as part of your website URL. By choosing a simple yet relevant URL that includes keywords, you can help search engines like Google better understand what your site is about.
Step 3) Add keywords into text content pieces
There are many pieces of content on your website (website copy, product descriptions, landing pages, etc.). You can optimize every piece of text on your site by adding target keywords. This may seem complicated but it is actually quite simple. Using SEO tools like Wix SEO Tools, Moz, or SEMRush you can find out which words and phrases people are using to search for products similar to yours. Then add these phrases and words into your content where appropriate, but don't go overboard! You are trying to add keywords, but you still want to keep the original message so that your visitors can read through the content and have it make sense.
Step 4) Create individual pages to be focused on specific keyword sets
You can further improve rankings by making individual pages that are highly focused on specific keywords. For example, if you're creating a web design company, you might have an individual page that is titled "Web Design" with all details of this service included. This ensures users get relevant information when they are looking specifically for it. This is often called keyword-focused or keyword-rich content. These content pieces should always include their focus keyword (or phrase) at least once within their title tag, in H1 tags and throughout their body text. These pages should still be geared toward your overall target audience, which means these keyword phrases shouldn't appear over-zealously throughout your other site pages. If you find yourself stuffing your words into every corner of a webpage for no reason other than rankings, then don't do it. Create unique pages with unique descriptions that provide truly helpful information, rather than just trying to rank better through manipulative methods.
Step 5) Update title tags & meta descriptions per each page using keyword data specific to that page
SEO is all about making sure your content has all of its bases covered, and that's especially true when it comes to your page's title tags & meta descriptions. Meta descriptions help tell users what they're clicking through to, and title tags help create an overall brand awareness. When building out each page of your website, use keyword data specific to that page (e.g., dog food instead of pet food) in both meta descriptions and title tags; if a user sees something they're interested in but don't get enough information from your description or headline, they're going to click away and be disappointed.
Step 6) Publish new optimized content regularly
Ultimately, SEO isn’t about ranking number one on Google. It’s about making sure that your site meets all of its needs and requirements to ensure that it will eventually rank high enough on search engines. The best way to get started with SEO is by creating new optimized content regularly and then pushing that content out via social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube—you want as many eyeballs on your pages as possible so they can discover what you’re offering.
Step 7) Submit sitemaps & new pages to search engine for indexing
When you register your site with search engines, they’ll ask you if you have submitted a sitemap. A sitemap is an easy way to give them an idea of all of your pages so that they can optimize their algorithm properly. After publishing a new web page, I always go in to request that the page be indexed. When the page is indexed, it will start to show in search engines so you'll want to make sure that you submit the page for indexing after it is published to get it shared as quickly as possible. In addition, these engines will have suggestions on how to best optimize your pages. Just remember that search engine algorithms change and evolve over time; if you follow their advice now, it may no longer apply in three months time. So while it’s great to get expert opinions now, make sure that you regularly check in with yourself and ask Is what I am doing working? If not, try something new.
Step 8) Fix issues found in search engine webmaster tools
Before you can optimize your website, it’s important to make sure that you have no technical errors that might be causing issues. Go through these items in Google Webmaster Tools and see if anything needs fixing:
Noindex – You may want specific pages not indexed. Review each item and make sure it’s correct.
Crawl errors – Try using Google's Fetch as Google tool on individual pages or use GTmetrix if your site is large.
Robots.txt file – Make sure all your webpages are listed there, especially ones you don't want crawled.
Step 9) Optimize mobile pages for search engines
Google announced that page speed will be one of its ranking factors. That’s why it’s more important than ever to optimize your website for mobile devices and make sure that pages are loading quickly. This can be done by optimizing elements like images, CSS and JavaScript files, using Wix's app library (link), which includes an image optimizer that significantly reduces their size without losing quality or detail. If you don't use Wix App Library, you can find many free tools online with which you can optimize image files in bulk. It's also good practice to test your pages on mobile devices before making them public. Aside from loading times, you want to make sure that the website can easily be browsed using a mobile device. Information should be easy to find and if the experience is too complicated for the visitor, they'll simply leave your site.
Step 10) Optimize website loading times
A faster loading website can help search engines determine that your site is relevant because it’s optimized, giving you more bang for your SEO buck. If you're not optimizing your website load times, it's time to get started. Load time plays a huge role in how search engines rank websites and also in user experience. For example, research shows that users will spend one minute looking at any page with a load time of three seconds or less but will abandon pages that take longer than three seconds to load.. This means it’s important to optimize every aspect of your web page, including page size and file sizes on images, slower loading elements, additional unnecessary features and animations. To get started optimizing your site, use Google PageSpeed Insights.
Keep in mind, though, that optimizing your website for search engines shouldn’t be an end unto itself. It’s about creating content and designing your site so it provides real value to searchers, so they visit and learn more about your company or product. Wix is great at streamlining SEO efforts—especially if you want something basic but also don’t have time or interest in getting into all of it, but it still takes work. Always remember to make SEO just one part of a larger strategy that focuses on quality content creation and user experience.
Author's bio:
Published by Cody Teagardin for Sunrise Coding, the full-service web design agency that marries smart strategy with elegant design & code to achieve powerful results.
If you're looking for a new website, let's chat. We offer free consultations by email, phone, or in person to discuss your unique project needs. Our studio is located within the white mountains of Arizona, but we have clients all over the world! Feel free to drop me a line at cody@sunrisecoding.com if you have any questions.
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