Search engine optimization is a tough nut to crack. There’s so much to consider when managing SEO, including keywords, quality content, titles, HTML structure, and URLs—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! SEO can be confusing, and that’s why I’ve decided to write a three-part series of blog posts dedicated solely to SEO.
There are three major elements to a successful SEO strategy: content, social media, and links. Today’s post is all about content.
Content isn’t just the text that appears on your website—your site’s design also falls under the “content” category. According to a recent Forbes magazine article, there are five main elements that will “ensure that your content is doing its job.” These five elements are keyword research, content optimization, user experience, site design, and a blog.
Keyword Research
As stated in the Forbes article, you can only optimize your site once you know how your target market searches for the products/services you have to offer. There are several things you can do that will help you when you’re trying to curate a list of useful keywords for your website. Start by brainstorming a list of phrases related to your business. Once you have a list of phrases, you can enter them into Google’s Keyword Tool to see what related terms are recommended by Google. You can also enter your website’s URL into the Keyword Tool to find out what terms you are currently ranking for or could target. If you want to take it one step further, you could even enter your competitors’ website URLs into the keyword tool to find out what keywords are working for them. This will help you to develop a keyword strategy.
Content Optimization
Once you’ve decided on your keywords, you’ll need to embed them into your content. Be careful not to go overboard—it’s not all about stuffing keywords into your content at every available opportunity. Instead, be thoughtful about where you’re including keywords. Generally, keywords that appear higher up on your page have more impact on your SEO rankings (titles and meta tags are great places to put keywords).
User Experience
Is your website easy to navigate? If it isn’t, your SEO rankings could be taking a major hit. Make sure your website is uncluttered and organized. At the very least, you need a clear and concise navigation bar and an easy-to-find search bar. If you’re not sure if your site’s user experience is a good one, you can look up your bounce rate on Google Analytics. A “bounce” happens when a visitor leaves your website after only looking at one page. If your bounce rate is high, that’s a good indication that your site isn’t very user-friendly and it’s time to hire a professional website designer.
Site Design
Forbes hit the nail right on the head when they said: “there’s an assumption, by both search engines and visitors, that a site that looks spammy is spammy.” I can’t stress enough how important a clean and professional site design is for your SEO rankings. If your site needs an updated look, IMP Digital’s website design professionals can help. (Check out our portfolio to see our past work!)
Blog
Search engines, especially Google, value fresh content. Therefore, if you want to maintain or improve your SEO rankings, you’re going to need to be producing content on a regular basis—and what better way to do this than with a blog? Adding a blog to your website also helps with SEO by increasing the amount of content that you can rank for in search engines. It’s important that you keep up with your blog posts; if you find that you’re having trouble writing posts on a regular basis, you can hire SEO companies (like IMP Digital) to maintain your blog for you.
So, there you have it: a brief explanation of what your website needs in order to have good content for its SEO rankings. Stay tuned for my next successful SEO blog post that will focus on social media!
