Your new website may be beautifully designed and loaded with interesting content, but if you’re not paying attention to the basics of SEO content creation, no one, will see it.
The vast majority of website experiences – about 93% – begin with search engines. Reaching new visitors through these search engines requires an algorithmic approach to SEO content creation. In other words, where you place key words and links and how you use them is the secret to catching Google eyes.
Forbes.com contributor AJ Agrawal offers the following top 3 tips on increasing search engine results for your website:
Choose, Use Keywords Wisely
Most people – 75% of users – only click through the first page of the search results, so your objective is to get on that front page. You’ll need to predict what keywords your targets are using to find companies and products like yours. Because this is your business, you most likely have a good idea of those keywords. But a brainstorm session with your team and scanning competitor sites can unearth alternative keywords related to questions and issues your products address. These keywords are the golden tickets to increasing quality online traffic.
Once you have a list of keywords, take them for a spin on the Google Keyword Planner Tool and see how they rank in number of searches. This tool can also help you to come up with new keywords and combinations that merit higher search engine rankings.
Choose one or two keywords max per page, then list the keywords in your headline and at least a couple of times in the body of the page copy, including the lead paragraph. Don’t go overboard on this! Make sure your keywords fit naturally into the context of the page copy. Keyword stuffing your page to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results can harm instead of help your outcomes. Overall, keep SEO content creation for each page between 300 to 700 words to keep browsers engaged.
Add Keywords to URL and Image Filenames
Another trick to scoring high with search engines is including your keywords in the URL for the page. This tells the search engine that your keyword is the focus of the page and more relevant to the searcher.
Images also boost your SEO when you list a keyword in the image filename and in the alt text image description, a brief 1-2 summary describing what’s pictured in the image.
Link to High Authority Pages
According to a recent study, about 99% of the sites that land in the first page of Google search results include at least one external link. Similar to social circles, search engine algorithms judge your relevance and authority by the company you keep. The most successful SEO content creation includes internal links to more detailed information and external links to high authority sites that boost the relevance of your content.
Maximize ROI on your website by including these SEO basics in your content development. This strategy can mean the difference between page one and page five on search engine results and boost your traffic with more highly qualified sales leads.