How to optimize your website for search engines

 How to optimize your website for search engines

The more people who visit your website, the more likely you are to make a sale, find a new client, or gain a reader for your blog. In simple terms, generating traffic to your website is critical to achieving your goals. For that reason, it's important to understand search engine optimization (SEO). If you know how to optimize your website, you have more control over where your site appears in search engine results, how many people view your website, and who finds you online.

Read our search engine optimization guide to learn more about SEO: from how it works to SEO best practices and tools to track and improve your website's SEO over time.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a marketing strategy that makes it easier for search engines to understand your website. Search engines periodically scour and index websites, meaning they "read" the content of all the pages on your site and rate your website based on what you offer and who can benefit from your products or information. Good SEO will allow search engines to easily decide when to show your website to those who search and will increase your chance of connecting with the right audiences for your brand.

There are two main branches of SEO: technical SEO and content marketing.

1.      Technical SEO

The technical SEO of a website includes aspects of the design and structure of your website, such as the loading time of your website or how it adapts to different screen sizes. Some website templates have automatic technical optimizations, like web maps and tags, so you can focus your energy on optimizing other areas of your online presence.

2.      Content marketing

Content marketing is an approach that comprises publishing blogs, videos, podcasts, and other media to trigger interest in your brand, establish its authority, and boost SEO. Whether you publish a blog or add descriptive text to your landing pages, the more content you create for your website, the more information you'll be providing to search engines so they can understand your brand and rank it.

Why is SEO important?

SEO is important because most people only look at the first page of search results, and only the first few links that appear on page one. You can take other steps to grow your audience, such as building your brand on social media, but optimizing your site so that it appears on the page of one of the search results is essential to stand out and to move the needle on indicators such as the sales.

For example, if you have a shoe line and are launching your online store, you can strategically optimize your product pages so that the best-selling shoes show up as an option when someone searches for "best running shoes for women" online.

How to improve the SEO of your website

You can hire an expert to optimize your website, go through the SEO checklist, and take steps to improve your website's SEO. Regardless of what your approach is, it's good to know how you can do SEO yourself. Search engines regularly update their algorithm and change the way they evaluate the content, which means your website needs to adapt too. If you have a basic understanding of how to influence your website's SEO, you can use SEO best practices to grow your audience, even as engine algorithms evolve:

Step 1: Research the keywords

Keyword research will allow you to identify the most important words and phrases that people use when searching for topics that relate to your products or services. You can use keywords in the texts and the contents of your website, which will make the search engines present your web pages to the people who are doing the search.

Free tools like Google Search Console can benefit you from getting on track.

Step 2: Effective Copywrite for your website

In addition to taking advantage of keywords, don't forget to include text throughout your website. Fill in your website metadata and embed keywords in product URLs, product descriptions, page titles, and image alt text to help search engines read and rank your content.

Whether the goal of your website is to sell a product, promote your services, or present your portfolio, good copywriting will go a long way in allowing search engines to index your website.

Step 3: Improve your website design

Search engines rank websites that offer a decent user experience (UX). Websites that have faster page speeds (i.e., load faster), are mobile and tablet friendly, and have clear site navigation are likely to rank above other websites.

Manage variables like page speed by avoiding cluttering your website with large video or image files, and choose a website template that is flexible and adapts to different screen sizes.

Read more about choosing the right website template.

Step 4: Build authority on the topic

Post blogs and other content that indicates your authority on topics related to your brand. For example, if you are promoting your photography business, you can create a blog to showcase your knowledge and experience in the industry. You can link your content to other authoritative sources to showcase your expertise to search engines. The higher your website and brand positions as an authority, the more search engines will prioritize your content in search results.

Step 5: Keep track of your growth

It can take weeks or months to see the impact of an SEO strategy, because it also takes time for search engines to read your website, index it, and start showing it to searchers. After updating your website, monitor new users and traffic sources to understand if your SEO strategy is driving people to your website. Pay attention to indicators such as bounce rate and conversion to understand if you are getting qualified traffic, that is, that the people who find your website are your target audience.