Where do you suppose your traffic is coming from? We rely on people on the internet to discover our websites through major search engines, like Google, which is why search engine optimization should always be a top priority. When users don’t reach your website, you won’t get the chance to generate leads.
Here’s an interesting statistic for you: almost 94% of internet experiences begin with a search engine. When someone enters a name or keyword on the browser, there is a near 35% chance they would be clicking the top result. This basically tells you that not being on the first page will cause you to miss out on more than one-third of potential visits. Furthermore, 3 of 4 search engine users won’t even bother checking out page 2. As one of the top custom web design companies out there, Proweaver hopes this will spur on your efforts to implement an effective SEO performance strategy.
The reason why other websites are ranking higher than yours seems to be clearer now, doesn’t it? If these companies are putting in a conscious effort to boost their SEO, then you should definitely follow suit. Get started right now with our list of steps to potentially skyrocket the SEO performance of your website:
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Reduce page loading times
Page loading speed is crucial for a number of reasons. One, Google considers this as one of the factors to determine search engine ranking, so if your pages are loading at a turtle’s pace – more than three seconds – then that’s not going to bode too well for you. No matter how great your website is, visually, it’s not going to matter because most people won’t actually get the chance to see it. People who are made to wait more than three seconds for a page to load are likely to abandon that page and make their way to a competitor’s website.
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Create superb content
This is how competitive the digital landscape has become. If you don’t regularly update your pages with fresh and quality content, consumers are eventually going to lose interest in your website. Give people a reason to keep visiting your website by regularly posting relevant and useful information. You are going to want to boost what is called the user’s “dwell time” or the amount of time people spend on your website.
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Optimize your images
Images make for great website content. However, images that aren’t properly optimized are going to negatively impact several aspects of your website’s function, including page loading speed. Optimize your images so that they don’t bring you these headaches, and even improve your search engine ranking. Put effort into resizing or compressing your images to reduce page load times.
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Use header tags to divide your content
Headings make it easier for audiences to read your content. There’s something unappealing about looking at a bunch of text all clustered together and occupying a huge block of space on your webpage. Use headers to divide paragraphs and make them readable, encouraging your visitors to actually take the time to read them.
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Do some blogging
Blogging can take your business to new heights
. It’s a great tool for generating leads and relatively easy to do. You can also provide meaningful interactions for your visitors through your blogs. But more important than anything else is that blogs can also boost web rankings. The reason stems from a previous step in this article regarding the importance of “fresh and high-quality” content updates. Blogging is perhaps your best opportunity to accomplish this goal. It allows you to establish yourself and gain a considerable following, and people will constantly be visiting your website in search of new updates and blog posts. -
Add outbound links
To increase the credibility of your site, you need to use outbound links. This basically leads readers to verified and factual source materials that back up your claims. This gives the reader assurance that you’re not making things up and have actually done your research. People want to be sure that the products or services they buy from you can actually produce the results that you claim, and incorporating outbound links in your content is a great and easy way to do that.
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Texts shouldn’t be the only content on your site
Written words are great and all, but they shouldn’t be the only type of content occupying your web pages. Add content that is more visually-appealing, like pictures, but don’t forget to optimize them. Other multimedia elements, like audios, slideshows, and videos, should also be integrated into your site. Varying your content helps keeps your different target audiences engaged and gives them all the chance to have a quality user experience.
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Websites should be readable
When creating content, your target audiences should always be in mind. Use terms that are easy to understand. Using highfalutin words and difficult terms are going to cause most of your visitors to lose interest as they’re not really going to bother looking up the meanings of those words. Structure written content in a way that makes it easy for majority of your visitors to grasp.
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Broken links should be fixed right away
Broken links typically aren’t something you trouble yourself with when using authority sites for hyperlinks, but that doesn’t mean they are completely escapable. In the few times they can happen, make sure to have them fixed immediately because they can lower your SEO ranking.
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Create a mobile-adaptable site
It’s already been proven that most people visit websites through their mobile phones – more than half of Google searches come from smartphones. It’s important to put effort in optimizing your website for mobile phones so that people get a similar experience in viewing your website no matter what device they use.
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Proper formatting of pages
Never rush the website layout process. Take as much time as you need because every element of the webpage has to be clear, neat, and organized. Factor in things like typography and font size. There should be minimal usage of bold font, italics, and colored text. Utilize checklists and bullet points as they make it so much easier for your audiences to read and understand your content.
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Contact details should be accurate and in plain sight
There are, in fact, websites out there that make it difficult for you to acquire contact information. Talk about untrustworthy. This is not normal at all. Contact information should be the easiest to find in any website because that’s one of the main purposes of having a website in the first place: to have people get in touch with you. You can never be careless when it comes to this matter. Make sure that contact details are in plain sight and easy to understand so that visitors don’t start reporting you. This would completely ruin your SEO standing.
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Social media sharing
Every business has to establish a social media presence. You can probably see how every company is doing that in this day and age. However, what people don’t really know is that sharing the link to your website on social networks can actually boost SEO performance. You can work with companies like Proweaver to not only provide top-notch custom web design but also a good social media marketing strategy.
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Keywords are key
Did you know that keywords play a key role in Google’s ranking algorithm? Use words and phrases people are most likely to enter in a search engine browser when looking for products and services offered by your company. However, don’t overdo it. When there are practically too many keywords in your content, Google is going to punish you for it. You should make sure that keywords flow naturally in your sentences and paragraphs.
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Create attention-grabbing titles and descriptions
But first, you need to keep in mind the limits: only 65 characters. You could have the most amazing title in the world, but it will only get cut off if it exceeds this character count limit. Keep your titles short, sweet, and engaging. You want titles and descriptions to capture the attention of your readers from the get-go. You want a title that doesn’t make your audiences think twice about reading the body.
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Clean, focused, and optimized URLs should be your target
While your title tags should evoke emotions from your audiences, your URL doesn’t have to. Your URL should only contain the words and terms that it is ranking for.
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Create a good meta description
Meta description is also a vital element you should optimize. Put in the effort to make sure that your descriptions are one of a kind, short, and descriptive. This may not be on par with headings in terms of increasing click rates, but from an SEO performance perspective, it still holds a lot of importance.
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Have it in a mobile app
Your goal to boost SEO performance can be bolstered by creating a mobile application. This is a more expensive route to accomplishing your mission, but it is absolutely worth it. People searching for keywords that fall under your niche could end up finding your app, and that would be amazing for your SEO.
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Use latent semantic indexing
LSI or latent semantic indexing is an incredibly powerful tool to boost SEO. Basically, it’s a process used by search engines to discover related keywords on top of your main keywords. It helps find synonyms for your keywords. You can collaborate with custom web design companies, like Proweaver, to get a clearer grasp on LSI and how it can significantly improve your SEO.
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Use lightweight codes
Codes can lead to so many great things, but too much of it can cause trouble for you, too. Just ask CSS and JavaScript – the typical offenders of unnecessary codes. Excess codes will negatively impact your page load times. This is bad for you and even worse for your SEO ranking.
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Take advantage of infographics
If you’re looking to pack an SEO punch, then use infographics. This can be an incredibly powerful tool for boosting SEO when you get the two most important elements in place: exceptional design and high-quality content. Overlooking content, which is what a lot of people do these days, is going to significantly affect how well your infographic performs.
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Get press coverage
Press holds a lot of power in improving SEO performance. You can work with PR agencies to get your site the coverage it needs to rank among the page 1 result. A more affordable way to do it would be to build relationships with reporters by providing them feedback and helping out with their stories. This will encourage them to actually give your business some coverage.
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Make your niche more fun
When you think of boring niches, you’ll usually find it hard to twist them in a way to make them fun. But nothing is impossible, and experts have found away to make typically boring contents more interesting and entertaining. You can do some research on more interesting niches related your current one and create content that would spur people’s curiosities and make them interested in knowing what you have to say.
That’s twenty-three of them, but in reality, there are still so much more. The number of ways to improve SEO performance is projected to increase because SEO isn’t simply a fad that’s going to fizzle out soon. You need to be working on it right now and in the years to come.
If you’re only just starting to make SEO a priority then it’s about time. You may be a bit late in your realization, but that doesn’t mean you no longer have a chance to implement the strategies mentioned above. Take things one step at a time and partner with the right company. Proweaver, for example, has experts who can build the ideal SEO strategies that meet your company’s needs and goals.
What other steps have you taken to improve SEO performance? Did they end up being effective for your website? Please feel free to share your knowledge in the comment section.