As Search Engine Optimisation changes every second, keeping up with the trend is very important. Whether you own a small enterprise or a huge business, investing in Search Engine Optimisation is necessary. But why exactly does it matter?
Search Engine Optimisation or simply SEO is the key element that helps a well-optimised website gain more traffic. This is beneficial, especially for small businesses and marketers. When there is more traffic, there are more leads and to some…MORE SALES!
Now, the question is: how do you improve your website ranking?
To save you the trouble of doing tons of research, here’s a list of 10 effective SEO tips just for you. Read on to find out more.
Tip 01 – Use Relevant Page Meta Titles
Tip 02 – Use Relevant Page Descriptions
Tip 03 – Create and Submit a Sitemap
Tip 04 – Setup Google Search Console
Tip 05 – Perform Keyword Research
Tip 06 – Create a Content Plan
Tip 07 – Start Creating Content
Tip 08 – Optimise Image
Tip 09 – Ensure Website is Mobile-Friendly
Tip 10 – Ensure Fast Website Loading Time
10 Effective SEO Tips to Improve Website Ranking
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 01) – Use Relevant Page Meta Titles
The use of relevant page meta titles is crucial as it affects the click-through rates of your website. The more relevant your meta titles are, the higher your rank in the search engine results page would be. Since meta titles help search engines learn more about your website. It can also serve as an advertising tool, which comes in handy in search marketing.
Remember to keep your titles under 60 characters, as search engines like Google generally look at the first 50-60 characters of your titles.
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 02)– Use Relevant Page Descriptions
Many of you must be wondering, we have just gone through meta titles and that is the most important element in SEO, isn’t that enough? No. Let’s not forget the page descriptions.
So what are page descriptions? The page description is a short paragraph that best describes what your website is all about. This helps audiences decide whether or not they should click on your website link. As a very useful tool to help convince visitors to click on your site, the choice of words in the descriptions are very important. A unique and compelling page description can help boost the click-through rates and generate more traffic, making it an efficient advertising tool as well.
Here are some factors you should keep in mind when writing your page descriptions:
- Summarize your page content accurately – use precise and unique words that best describe your website. You may include some of the meta titles you have created earlier.
- Limit your descriptions to 160 characters including spacings. This is important as words can be cut off in some search engine result page if it exceeds the maximum count.
You can do so by adding this line (below) into your HTML page.
<meta name=”description” content=”A page’s description,
usually one or two sentences. Less than 160 characters are the best!”/>
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 03)– Create and Submit a Sitemap
The sitemap provides an overview of the pages on a website. It is very important especially when your website is,
1) not well-organised, does not have a proper hierarchy
2) too large and has a lot of pages or too dynamic especially e-commerce
3) has external links
4) newly launched.
The two common types of sitemaps: XML sitemap and HTML sitemap.
An XML sitemap is only used by search engines to be able to crawl through various web pages on a website. It is located in the root directory of a domain. Thus, it isn’t visible to any user.
HTML sitemaps, on the other hand, are formatted links which allows audiences to navigate through web pages.
When creating a sitemap, ensure that all links are accompanied by a brief description and keywords as tags to the link. With unique and rich keywords, your website will start climbing up the search engine like a rocket!
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 04) – Setup Google Search Console
After producing keywords and unique descriptions, now it is time to start monitoring how Google views your site and optimizes its natural presence. The next step is to set up your Google Search Console. From the search console, you can view your referring domains, mobile site performance, high search results, and your website’s traffic queries and pages.
Google Search Console has the most important feature and that is Google Analytics. It helps gain insights on your website’s performance. Metrics are available for you to compare monthly or annually on information such as the number of clicks, click-through rates and the overall positioning of your website. This will also allow you to monitor the nature of other websites that are linked to your website.
Google Search Console can also identify errors which can be found on your website such as 404 errors or robot files. With all these features and information, you will be able to handle your website’s housekeeping at the tip of your fingers.
Haven’t set it up yet? Do it now! Before you start, make sure you have a Google account for your business. Once you are signed up, you are ready to set up Google Search Console.
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 05) – Perform Keyword Research
Keywords are the most essential elements in SEO. It plays a vital role in developing your website successfully. The purpose of SEO keywords is to discover the common, specific industry-related terms and phrases that drive search traffics on search engines. A lot of keywords are created from observing how your target audience behaves and reacts, the questions they will or might ask and the information they usually search for.
Before you start, it is important to identify what you want to achieve from this process. Whether it is…
- Your website’s quality of content, the number of pages, the right images used, etc
- Your online branding, exposure, traffic, leads and sales
- Your industry information and your competitors
How do we start this process?
Step 01 – Brainstorm and generate keyword ideas or topics that are relevant to your business and your target audiences. For example the words they might use to ask questions or the information they will ask of your business/product.
Step 02 – Narrow down and choose only the most relevant keywords and topics. Ask yourself if you were the customer or target audience, what will the questions or information that will be enquired?
Step 03 – Use Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner to check on the number of people who are using similar words as well as your competitors who are using the same keywords from your list.
Alternatively, you can enter your chosen words into the Google search and scroll right to the bottom of the results page and search for ‘Searches related to…’ you will find the words or phrases Google assumes relevant to your chosen keywords.
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 06) – Create a Content Plan
Great content makes a great website.
Content marketing is known as one of the most effective strategies to drive traffic and generate leads for your website. Content planning is a crucial step you should have embarked on at the beginning of the website development. Just like building any other relationship, it all starts with finding out more about the people you’re building a relationship with known as your audience. Then, follows by understanding the purpose of your business and how the users would behave and navigate around your website. More efforts invested during the planning stages will bring you more relevant, engaging and insightful content.
Producing well-made content can be challenging. Fear not, here are some essential tips for you.
- Review your current copy. If you creating a new website, refer to other mediums like corporate brochures and write-ups to establish your existing content
- Determine your target audience
- Who are they? (demographics)
- How will they navigate through your website?
- What information do they need? What information are they looking for?
- Do they need to be reassured? Do you need to probe or ask them questions?
- Use sitemaps – it gives you an overview of where, when and whys of content placement. Gaps in-between can also be spotted including what needs to be added or edited. Once done, it can be easily shared with the rest of your team.
- Have a content inventory – This can help identify the specific purpose and role of every sentence on your website content. These are something you might want to relook into:
- URL (http://……)
- Website Title
- File format
- Page description (refer to Tip 02)
- Meta titles (refer to Tip 01)
- Categorisations and taggings
- Website Content Mapping – This is a great way to identify which content belongs to which part of your website. Here, you will need to consider your purpose of your business and of your website.
- Content Schedule – Once drafts are created, have a schedule to review them and ask for feedback to amend them. Have a “Go LIVE” date as your ultimate dateline. Also, include the posting of your blog posts, social media posts, promotional posts, events posts or any other engagement. At this point, you should have all your content planned out. Always remember to:
- Write to be easily understood…not just to sell
- Write for your audience and search engine.
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 07) – Start Creating Content
In most cases, user-focused content are the ones that create traffic and lead to your website. A well-optimised website that has strong and relevant content along with a fantastic backlink profile often ranks the highest in search engines. While it isn’t easy to create such efficient content, curating one is always possible.
- Create headlines and subheads – Headlines and subheads allow easy reading for users, encouraging them to share a good read. The same applies to search engine robots, through the use of these highlights, they will be able to scan through the article or content smoothly.
- Use backlinks – This is useful especially when you do not want your older content to be forgotten. With internal and external backlinks, your website will be more recognizable by search engines, and in turn, boosts your ranking!
- Target your audience using the right words – Choose your words wisely and stick to keywords that are related to your business and your targeted users. Never go off-topic. This might prevent returning users from visiting your website.
- Lengthen your article and go in-depth on your content – Search engine prioritizes longer, solid content as they provide users with the best possible answers.
- Optimise your images – Add keywords to your image files and to the ALT tags. Ensure that your images are not bigger than what they need to be. Always remember to save them by (KB) and not by (MB).
- Make content shareable – With your content all well-optimised and written, it is best to make it available to everyone. Always have a “share” element like a button or an option so that you can spread the good stuff you have created!
SEO Tips (SEO Tip 08) – Optimise Image
Web image optimisation means converting high-quality images into the right format, size, dimensions, and resolution while keeping the file size to its smallest version possible.
Most people would probably ask, “Is it really necessary?” Optimizing your website images helps improve your website’s loading speed, improving user experience. The bigger your image file size is, the longer your website will take to load. This is the last thing your audiences are expecting to see.
Optimising images can also boost your website’s SEO ranking as Google does not favour slow loading websites.
Don’t worry, you don’t need any special photo editing programmes to do so. There are a lot of online websites or applications that can help you throughout web image optimisation. Always remember, images should not be bigger than they need to be.
SEO TIps (SEO Tip 09) – Ensure Website is Mobile-Friendly
Given the fast-moving and advanced mobile technology world we are in, creating a mobile-friendly website is a must. Seeing how people are bending towards the usage of mobile devices, keeping up with this trend is necessary.
Responsive websites are designed and developed to allow all content to be displayed clearly on any device. So why exactly are these types of websites necessary?
- Google prioritises mobile-friendly websites.
- People are always on their mobile devices rather than on their desktops.
- It provides users with better user-experience.
- It gives your business a sense of credibility and professionalism.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO Tip 10) – Ensure Fast Website Loading Time
Lastly, ensuring your website has a fast-loading time is crucial to improve your website ranking. One of the main reasons why users search online is because they want it fast and swift. A slow-loading website defeats the purpose of making your information available online. Before you know it, users are back on search engines looking for the same information elsewhere, without the planning of visiting your website again.
The faster your website loads, the more valuable your brand will be for your audiences. But how do you make sure your website has fast loading speed?
- Optimising all your images (refer to tip 8).
- Save all your CSS and scripts as external files and link them.
- 3. Combine files and do regular maintenance to remove any unnecessary formatting, whitespace, and codes.
- Try to reduce the amount of redirecting links.
- Improve your server response time.
Follow These 10 Effective SEO Tips to Improve Website Ranking
Following these 10 effective SEO tips can help you achieve a well-optimised website with increasing traffic flow and soaring search engine rankings. Keep in mind that the internet is a gigantic world. Hence, competitions will always exist. To keep on top of your game, investing in SEO can be your best bet. By simply following these steps, boosting your ranking, increasing awareness and improving your sales can be possible.
In need of a reliable digital marketing agency for Search Engine Optimisation? We’re here to help.
Feel free to drop us an email at hello@smmile.com or call our hotline at +65 8687 8143.
