5 Ways to Improve Your SEO in the New Year
They say, “If you want to hide something from the world, put it on the third page of Google results.” Don’t let that happen to your company. If growing your business is one of your goals for this year, search engine optimization, or SEO, is a great first step.
Every business, large or small, needs to compete in the digital space. If you’re running your own business it may seem impossible to even the playing field with much larger competitors. But, a savvy SEO strategy can help you do just that. If you don’t know all the ins and outs of website optimization, don’t worry. There are SEO services in California, like InnoVision, that can help you develop a technical strategy.
There are also a few things you can do on your own, but it’s also important to know that hiring an expert to optimize your website’s click-through rate, findability, and functionality can provide a great return on investment.
Here are five ways you can improve your business’s search returns:
1. Make Spot-On Content
Search engine optimization is a long game. Search engines are oriented toward “organic traffic.” This is a bit of circular logic that means, in essence, that the more people visit your website, the higher your search engine ranking will be. You can help this process along by frequently posting high-quality content. The investment in both variety and regularity will work double-time for your business. On the one hand, it’s what customers want to see. It shows a commitment to your business and provides valuable information about your product.
On the other hand, it allows you to connect with searches more broadly. When you create content related to your industry’s products and services, you link that content with more search terms and keywords each time.
2. Collect Valuable Back Links
When you’ve upped your content game, you may find that other websites are willing to link back to yours. Both the number and quality of links to your website that exist around the web affect your search engine results.
For example, if you run a small brewery, you may decide to post a video on the best types of beer to pair with certain meals. Recipe bloggers might link back to your website to show that video to their readers. That traffic sends positive signals to Google. When a larger publisher, like Esquire or Gourmet, links back to your site, those signals are even greater.
Paying for back links to your site is a no-no according to Google’s webmaster guidelines, so create the kind of organic traffic that search engine algorithms love. Novel, high-quality, and informative content will get your site moving up through the ranks.
3. Streamline Your Website
Even the most-visited website will drive users away with clunky architecture. Nothing will make a potential customer click back to the search results faster than a website that’s slow, difficult to navigate, or visually messy. A simple, clean, and easily navigable website will keep users on your page longer. This is important because the time a reader stays on your site also influences your search engine ranking.
There are a lot of information architecture guides online, so this is a project you could undertake on your own. However, hiring expert SEO services in California can help your streamlining go a lot further.
4. Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Optimized
Google has switched to a mobile-first index, meaning if your site is optimized for mobile devices, you get higher in search rankings. They do this because most users conduct online searches with their mobile phones.
The new index evaluates the user’s experience on both mobile and desktop websites, weighting mobile-friendly sites more heavily. Your images and videos need to be optimized for mobile use as well. A good UX will keep customers on your site for longer, beefing up your “time on site” stats. When it comes to web optimization, an expert can help you tremendously.
5. Get Strategic With Keywords
This part is a bit more technical. Websites rank higher in search engine results when they’re relevant to the searcher’s keywords. Those keywords can be in your URL, your page headings, or your web copy – and optimally, all three.
You want to include enough keywords to drive traffic to your site, but you have to avoid keyword stuffing. Adding a slew of unrelated keywords to your site can actually have a negative impact on your SEO, as it makes your site seem like junk that search engines want to filter out. The balance requires you to walk a fine line.
An expert in back-end and front-end web design can be really helpful here. On the back end, programmers can add value in a number of ways. They know how to carefully place your keywords in the metadata for maximal returns.
The loading speed of your site can be another factor in how high you’re ranking in search results. Loading time is a hugely important factor in both dwell time and search returns. A back-end web expert can help you avoid server overload and remove category page filters and other unnecessary code that can slow your webpage and cause people to click away.
On the front end, web designers can make sure your site and all its content are mobile-optimized. They’ll make sure it’s easy to use and looks clean and professional on mobile devices.
A lot of factors play into search engine optimization. In the end, the easiest way to optimize your search engine results is by having a great-looking, informative, and easy-to-use website. A new SEO strategy can increase your brand’s visibility and reach more of your target audience.
SEO Services
If you have questions about how to implement a sound SEO improvement plan, don’t hesitate to look for SEO services in California. InnoVision works with businesses of all sizes in an enormous number of fields. Regardless of the scope of your project, you may benefit from some professional insight into the world of search engine optimization.
