By now, everyone is aware that getting found on the major search engines is how the average business goes from unknown to online star. Site owners are also aware that in order to get found, search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be on their to-do list. All of that said, there is only a small fraction of site owners who know where to begin to do that. Let’s look at 10 things you can do right now to immediately boost your SEO ranking:
- Create Content Regularly – Search engines love websites that deliver fresh, original content that is actually of real interest to the site visitor. Even if you have to outsource, make sure that new content goes on your site regularly.
- Keywords In The URL – Make sure to name you pages so that the keyword is included in the title. For example www.mywidgets.com/page1.html tell the visitor and search engines nothing, whereas www.mywidgets.com/homemadewidgets.html tells everyone what they will find on that page.
- Remove Duplicate Content – Is there anything worse than someone that keeps repeating themselves? It’s annoying and counterproductive, so don’t do it to the visitors to your website.
- Get Social – The search engines are taking social networks in account more and more, so make sure that your social bases are covered on your site.
- Get Even More Social – While having a presence on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter is now essential, so is making use of social bookmarking sites. Digg, Stumbleupon, and others can drive a large amount of traffic to your site and create links that the search engines eat up.
- Get Creative With Title Tags – Keywords play a major role in improving SEO ranking, so use them wherever you can. The title tags for your site are a great place to start and can be incredibly effective at helping you reach your target audience.
- Keep Your Link Quality High – A single link to your website from a respected source is much more valuable than a hundred from low quality websites that may not even be relevant to your niche. Always go with quality over quantity if you want to improve your ranking.
- Build A Great Body – No, we are not suggesting that you hit the gym, but rather that you structure the content on your pages for maximum effect. That means adding bold headlines, bullet points, anchor text, and more. It helps your audience quickly find what they need when they show up at your site.
- Content Is King – We mentioned earlier about the need for fresh content, but just putting up keyword heavy stuff with an eye on the search engines won’t help. You need to deliver content that will inform, entertain, and make people come back for more.
- Audit Your Website – Audit is usually a word that sends shivers up the spine, but in the case of your website, it should be considered a must. A full audit will reveal issues that need to be addressed ASAP.
Mark Ford is the Owner of Red Website Design – One of the UK’s leading website design and internet marketing companies.
