website optimization tips guides

Image: rhinopros.com

Your business’ website is typically the first point of contact that potential customers have with your organization. It’s the equivalent to a storefront, and like a brick and mortar store, you will have spent hours ensuring that it represents the business’ products and services, brand and ethos in a meaningful and appropriate way.

The font used, the brand-relevant colors, the images, and the calls to action all help to guide the site visitor through to the checkout. However, these are the window dressings, and while very attractive to visitors, the pages on your website may not be as appealing to the search engines that rank them.

The following guide highlights the areas to optimize so that your web pages are just as appealing to Google and other search engines as they are to the public.

URLs

Nobody likes to see clumsy URLs and least of all Google. Google pays most attention to the first five words in the URL and you should include the targeted keyword within this set. By doing so this means that the visitor also has a fair understanding of what to expect from a page’s content.

Be concise and avoid complex URLs. They need to be friendly to the human eye, which means swapping out longer URLs for shorter ones and avoid keyword stuffing as this will make your website look spammy.

Title Tag

The title tag is the headline that appears on search engine results pages, web browsers, and social media platforms. This is one of the most important SEO features of a web page that is often not given the weight it deserves by business owners.

Again, position the keyword at the start of the title tag and be mindful of the title length: too long and SERPs will edit it and the visitor may not see the relevant text. Aim for 60 characters.

Content

Google is all about unique content that adds value to its users. It also penalizes sites for duplicate content. You will be familiar with how keywords should be included within the content but understanding and optimizing user experience is also key to boosting rank position.

Time on site (how long a visitor spends on the page) is used to determine the quality of a page. Long-form content ranks higher than shorter articles, but there are other ways to encourage and engage visitors for a lengthier visit.

The ingredients to SEO-friendly content are:

  • Simple and clear
  • Credible
  • Educational
  • Unique
  • Unexpected

Tip: Explore how YouTube and infographics can work alongside your content to attract and maintain loyal visitors. Experts at DMG can guide you through the best practices to achieve an optimized web page that supports your business goals.

Images

Images are valuable features that heighten user experience, especially for e-commerce stores. Google image search is widely used and the label you attribute to an image can further improve the page’s SEO. Search engines will analyze the content of the page to determine the page’s ranking, but a descriptive keyword-rich image label provides additional and relevant data.

Avoid large image file sizes which can slow down page load speeds. To improve loading times, there are tools available that can remove unneeded data without losing image quality.

Auditing your website page by page can be a time-consuming task, but as search engines regularly update the algorithms that they use to rank sites, it is important that each page adheres to the recommendations to boost organic search ranking.

Everything on your website must add search engine value, not just cosmetic appeal. A superbly optimized website will drive a targeted audience to your business which will generate more sales. By making tweaks to the page’s structure, you will satisfy the search engines and visitors alike.