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3 Quick Tips for Better SEO

A successful website is a visible one.

With the Websites 360® website builder, anyone can build a professional, effective business website. And, thanks to our many beautiful design templates, you don’t have to be experienced in website design to get it right.

At the end of the day, though, the harsh reality is that it really doesn’t matter how great your website is if no one sees it.

When you build your website with Websites 360, you’re already doing something right from a visibility standpoint. Our templates are built for search engine optimization (SEO) with structured data, as well as microdata and rich snippets. But, SEO isn’t a one-time thing.

SEO is a long-term, ongoing process, but since we’ve already handled the technical SEO for your website, it doesn’t have to be a complicated process. The truth is that there are a lot of easy things you can do to help your site rank higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Today, I’m going to touch on just a few of them.

#1. Create content regularly

Content marketing is one of the most important parts of SEO. In fact, in the SEO world, it’s often said that content is king. But it’s also important to know that not all content is created equal in the SEO world; you can’t just copy/paste someone else’s blog or article, or write three sentences and call it good.

Effective SEO content must be:

  • Original - Never steal someone else’s content for your own website. Not only do you risk a cease and desist order — or potentially even a lawsuit — it’s not even going to help your site rank higher on the SERP. Google acts like duplicate content doesn’t exist, so you’re better off creating something original.
  • Relevant - You can write about anything you want on your blog page — or any other page of your website, for that matter, but it’s not going to help you rank unless it’s relevant to the keywords you want to rank for.
  • Authoritative - Google looks for authoritative content because it wants to provide its users with the best answers to their questions. The good news is that, as a business owner, you’re an expert in your field.
  • Informative - Don’t fill your blogs with empty words; utilize your blog to provide information that your visitors and customers can actually use and will benefit from reading.

The idea of writing articles for your blog can be intimidating, especially if you don’t have much experience with writing. But, you’ll be glad to know that Google isn’t looking for Pulitzer-prize-winning content. Start by writing about what you know, and you’ll be fine.

#2. Keep your website lean and mean

One of the biggest mistakes you can make while designing your website is failing to resize and compress your images. This can have a drastic effect on how quickly your website loads, which will also affect where your website stands in the organic rankings.

Google doesn’t share much about their algorithm. So, the fact that Google actually announced that page speed is a part of their algorithm is big in and of itself, and it means that it’s critical to ensure that your website is loading quickly.

The number one way to do that is to ensure that every image on your website is saved under the right file type and compressed for speed.

The other main thing that can affect site speed is the hosting service you’re using. When it comes to website hosting, you typically get what you pay for. That means if you’ve chosen a cheap website host, it probably won’t be all that reliable — or fast. Instead, do your homework to find a hosting provider you can rely on.

If your website is slow, not only can it affect its standing in the organic rankings; it can turn off your visitors and lead to a higher bounce rate. Your typical internet user doesn’t have the patience to wait around and will only give a site a few seconds to load and convince them to stick around.

If not, they’ll hit the back button and move on to the next result in the SERP. Believe it or not, as much as 40 percent of users will abandon a page if it takes more than just three seconds to load, and a delay of just one second can lead a loss in conversions by as much as 7 percent.

How do you find out how quickly your site loads and if it holds up to Google’s expectations? PageSpeed Insights is a great tool that can both test your site speed and give you recommendations on what you can do to improve it.

#3. Optimize your pages

There are a lot of little things you can do to help your site rank better as a whole, and to improve the rankings of individual pages on your website, by optimizing each page for the relevant keywords you’re targeting.

There are many different elements on a page that should include your targeted keywords. But, remember, never force a keyword. It will only end up looking spammy. Always use keywords as naturally as possible, and make sure that you’re writing for the readers, not Google’s algorithm.

Here are the different elements of on-page SEO optimizations:

  • Title tags - Title tags are only visible in the SERP, not on the page itself, and the goal of your title tag should be to entice users to click it.
  • Meta description - Meta descriptions are also only visible in the SERP, and should contain a description of the page, relevant keywords, and a call to action.
  • Headers - If you can do so naturally, try to use the keyword you’re targeting in the title and headers of your page.
  • Content - Create content around the keywords you’re targeting.
  • Images - Name image files using relevant keywords and optimize alt image tags.

Check out Marketing 360®’s blog to learn more about on-page SEO.

With Websites 360®, it’s easier than ever to build a site designed for SEO dominance. Get started today, and learn about how Marketing 360 can help you make it more visible.

Originally published on 5/1/20