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The Quick and Dirty Search Engine Optimization Guide for Your Website

    The Quick and Dirty Search Engine Optimization Guide for Your Website

    The Quick and Dirty Search Engine Optimization Guide for Your Website

    Are you looking for a few tips on how to optimize your website to get traffic and referrals from search engines? Read our Quick and Dirty Search Engine Optimization Guide for a few fast, effective tips from search engine optimization experts.

    Help! You have a website for your business, but it was created by your ex-girlfriend’s brother years ago. It looks fine, but you’re not sure how effective it is: How many people visit it? Does it even show up in search results? You’ve done your research and discovered something called “SEO,” but you aren’t even sure what those letters signify, let alone how to get it working for your business. You feel lost and confused, and likely want to hide in a corner, sobbing uncontrollably about the unfair nature of the marketing world.

    Ok – maybe the situation isn’t that bad. But, if you’ve researched SEO at all, you know it’s a bit like opening Pandora’s Box. There are innumerable tricks, tips, ideas, rules, and factors that go into ranking well in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engine results. Combined with the absolute necessity for businesses to rank well in our modern world, and you may feel like panicking. But, don’t worry – we are here to help. SEO doesn’t have to be confusing. Our SEO firm has guided countless businesses to ranking success. Here is our quick and dirty search engine optimization guide for your website so that you can get started on your path to success:

    Step One: Evaluation

    The first step of our quick and dirty search engine optimization guide is to evaluate your current situation. Here are a few questions to ask:

    • Do you have a website?
    • Is it indexed?
    • Is it mobile-friendly?

    If you have a website, the next step is to see if it has been indexed by Google. The easiest way to do this is to do a site search. Simply type “site:yoursitename.com” into the search bar, and you’ll get a list of results back. If your site is indexed, then there will be results. If it isn’t, then you need to consider working with an SEO firm to determine the reason. To determine if your site is mobile-friendly or not (which is an important factor as our culture moves towards smartphone use), all you have to do is run a Mobile-Friendly test using Google’s Developer tools. The next step is to use an SEO tool to find out the SEO health of your site. There are many tools that do this for you. Look for a tool that gives you a lot of insight into the following aspects of your site:

    • Title Tag
    • Meta Description
    • Density of Keywords on the Page
    • H1 and H2 Tags
    • txt Test
    • Broken Links
    • Alt Text for Images
    • Social Media Integration Check
    • Loading Speed

    The report you ran earlier will give you insight into which keywords your site is ranking for. But, if you don’t know which keywords you should be focusing on for your business, all that intel is useless. If you have a dog sitting business and the keywords “training pet” are the most prominent on the page, then you’re simply not going to going to be getting the traffic you need. Think about what you would search for to find your business, and make sure similar words are on the page. A slightly more advanced technique is to head to the Google search engine and start typing a search query in – the Google suggest tool will pop up with commonly-searched-for items. Of course, to take the best advantage of keywords on your site, you need to do in-depth keyword researching using a tool such as the Keyword Planner. You must lay a good foundation with your keyword research, as the rest of your SEO strategy will be built on this platform.

    Step Two: Designate Keywords

    Step Three: Create & Implement a Strategy

    Once you know where your site is and isn’t working, as well as which keywords people are using to find your business, you can create and implement a strategy. These are just a few things to consider as a part of your on-going strategy:

    • Focus on key pages on your site, making sure they are optimized (well-written content, h1 and h2 tags, images with alt text, easy to read and navigate, and a good call to action).
    • Check site speed and other technical aspects of your site to make sure that it is crawlable. Also implement a mobile site to ensure you will appear in mobile search results.
    • Create and plan your blogging strategy. Blogging is an essential part of SEO, as content is fast becoming the ruler of the industry. Read one of our past blogs for tips on SEO optimizing your blog, read our post
    • Evaluate your social media platforms. Spruce them up with a fresh profile or cover photo, and make sure your address, phone, and name are the same across each platform. Once you start blogging regularly, be sure you schedule each post and push it out to your followers!

    Search Engine Optimization Guide: The Next Step

    That’s it: Your quick and dirty search engine optimization guide for your website. Remember, search engine optimization doesn’t have to be overwhelming. After all, it’s what we do each and every day. If this SEO guide piqued your interest about how valuable SEO can be for your business, don’t hesitate to give us a call. One of our SEO experts to take advantage of our free SEO consultation. We will chat with you about your business and website needs, and discuss what you need to begin dominating the search results and getting the website traffic you need. Call today!