A website is a powerful tool for any company, organization, or individual. It’s an invaluable marketing and communications asset that can be used to promote your message, share information with customers and prospects, connect with partners, or network with other professionals in your field. And when it comes to getting the word out about you or your business on the Web, search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important things you need to know about.
But how do you know if your site is actually optimized? There are a lot of factors that affect SEO-friendly content: keywords, meta tags, and more. Here are some steps you should take to make sure Google will give priority placement in its search results pages.
Check your title tags
Your title tags are the words that show up in your “snippet” when you do a search on Google. It is very important to include keywords in your titles because this is what most people see before they click on your link.
Check your meta description
This is not necessarily used for SEO purposes but is more of a marketing tool. This tells people what your article is about before they click on it. If you have a good description, maybe people will see your website in their search results and be more likely to click on it.
Analyze the keywords you are targeting.
What keywords are you trying to rank for? Do these keywords provide value to your target audience? Are these keywords specific enough so that you can target them properly?
What is your bounce rate?
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who only visit one page before leaving again. High bounce rates are problematic because Google uses them as a signal that users aren’t finding what they’re looking for when they land on your page.
What is your average time on the page?
If people aren’t sticking around to read what you have written, Google may not think there’s any value in ranking your content for certain keywords.
What external links are pointing to your webpage?
External links are how other websites point to yours. They can be an indicator of the popularity and authority of your website. If you have a lot of high-quality links pointing to your page, it sends a signal to Google that you deserve to rank higher because other sites view your site as significant and credible.
4. Make sure your URLs are optimized for search engines .
When writing out your URLs, the best way to optimize them is by using keywords early in the URL path. Keep it short but descriptive. For example, if you are linking to an article about “french courses,” the URL would be helpful if it were https://yoursite.com/french-courses/
Use alt text on images to improve accessibility and SEO .
Alt-text is a brief description of an image that appears to the right of the corresponding image. Your page will not appear correctly in a browser without these images! There are several ways to make sure your alt text is optimized for search engines. First, include keywords – but don’t stuff them – to tell what the picture is about. Second, include the post title in the alt-text. Third, use terms that people would search for to find an image of that topic.
Add keywords in headings, paragraphs, and links
It’s important to include your keyword throughout the content of your page. Headings, paragraphs, and links are all places where you can place words that describe what a web page is about.
Google looks at keywords as a very strong ranking factor. So if you have those keywords in those areas it will boost up your search engine optimization.
Tailor your content to your potential students
Will people find your article useful? Is it interesting? What are their questions about the topic? Answering these questions in your content will improve its search engine optimization. This is something that you can do on an ongoing basis, so don’t just write one article and leave!
There are also some factors you want to avoid when optimizing your website for search engines. Firstly, irrelevant keywords hurt the optimization of your content. Using unnecessary keywords that don’t match up with your target audience is just a waste of time. Secondly, stuffing keywords will hurt your website’s ranking because Google won’t think it contains any valuable information.
You’re now ready to publish your blog posts! Once you have published a blog post, remember to use social media and other methods for promoting your content so more people will see it. You can also link back to older posts as a way of directing users from one part of your site to another. This improves the organization of your content and helps search engines figure out what your site is about. I hope you enjoyed this article!