Search engines run the world of online business. It makes sense, then, that businesses are always looking for an edge that will bring in more of that valuable search traffic.
Looking for ways to encourage Google to send more users your way? The answer lies in wooing the powerful search engine using its very own Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.
How SEO works
While SEO has its fair share of advanced applications, ranking high in search results lies on a simple cornerstone:
When your website contains content that is useful to the user performing a web search, Google rewards your website with a high ranking.
Useful content that matches the search results gets the ranking. Simple, right? It can be, but only if you approach it the right way.
Search engine optimization is less about making sweeping, dramatic changes to your site, and more about making small changes that improve your SEO. From accurate, descriptive page titles and descriptions to properly labeled images and blog posts, the small details really add up. These updates make your site more logical and clear to read, which is good for your readers and for the search engine.
How to help Google find your website relevant
You can refer your team to Google’s guide for more in-depth understanding, but here’s a quick look at four updates you can start this week that will help your website rank higher in search engine results:
- Update your blog. An important aspect of inbound marketing is that sites updated frequently with unique information rank better in search results. Take advantage of this SEO law by updating your blog with new, unique information at least weekly.
- Organize and optimize your social media presence. One of the many benefits of an active social media presence is that search engines link your site with user interaction. This helps the search engine match interested groups of people up with relevant content on your site. Reach out to those in your site’s related community to spark conversation and engagement that will benefit your brand and your Google SEO ranking.
- Optimize your images. Take advantage of an SEO boost by using “alt” tags on your website’s images. This will make your website’s images more search-friendly, and it will also be useful to users who visit your site on a browser that doesn’t support images. When you use images as a link, the alt text for the image is treated similarly to the anchor text of the link. Images are also important to include in your website content, as images on the page are often shown when a page on your website is shared on social media. A good image can attract interest.
- Promote your website the right way. There are right ways and wrong ways to promote your website. While you may receive a short-term boost with “wrong way” strategies like paying for backlinks and spamming your industry with duplicate content, those strategies will harm your site’s reputation in the long run. Instead, put in the hard work for big results: network within your target market and topic community to encourage gradual, genuine increases in traffic and backlinks.
Effective SEO practices ensure that when a prospective client clicks on your site, they get exactly what they expect: informative, on-topic, original information. The more clear it is that your website offers value and genuine information, the more likely you’ll increase traffic for your website and blog content.
