The primary objective of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to attract more visitors to your website. However most experts also agree that organic search results are more effective for conversion and producing positive results and therefore websites that have a higher organic search ranking are usually more trusted by people for a service or product since it shows that the website has authority. The following steps, if followed, will improve your website rankings through SEO.

SEO

  1. Research  – Start your SEO campaign with keyword research and in doing so select key phrases that are highly relevant to the services that your business provides. Specific key phrases with 3-4 words are best if you want visitors that are ready to purchase from you.
  2. Structure – Use keywords in your domain name, page names, titles, headings, folder names, etc.
  3. Navigation – Use keywords in your navigation links and make your website easy to navigate both for search engines and visitors. Include a XML sitemap if your website navigation is complex.
  4. Meta Tags – Use keywords and key phrases in the title, description and keyword tags. Each page in your website should have about 4 keyword phrases that are highly relevant to the content found on that page.
  5. Content – Use keywords in your content and as a general rule use keywords 1-2 times in the first 25% of the text.
  6. Local – Take advantage of local search opportunities by using your town, city, county and community names in your body text and on your contact page.
  7. Valid Code – Validate your code and remove coding errors since these errors interfere with spiders crawling your site and they affect browser compatibility and usability. There are many online code validation websites available.
  8. XML Sitemap – Include a XML sitemap for your website and submit the sitemap to Google Webmaster tools and Yahoo Site Explorer.
  9. Links – Gain backlinks to your website from highly relevant blogs, authority sites, directories and other websites that are part of your industry.
  10. Blog – Start a blog either as part of your website or on a separate domain and link to relevant pages on your website using your keyword phrases. Comment and participate on other blogs.
  11. Web Analytics – Install website analytics on your website to monitor progress and monitor not only your overall visitor count, but which keyword phrases are bringing visitors and from which search engines.

Contact us today to learn more about search engine optimisation (SEO).