SEO, or search engine optimization, is all about letting search engines know exactly what your website is about. The better you’re able to communicate this information, using their language, the better they’ll understand which search terms or keywords your website should rank for.
With a properly optimized website, customers will be able to find your business online when searching for your services. Because of this, you’ll be able to increase your website’s traffic, resulting in more leads and consequently more sales.
What Keywords Should You Optimize For?
A keyword is a search query used to find specific products, services, or information on search engines. Each of your website’s pages should target a specific keyword that customers would input into search engines when searching for your services.
Typically, your homepage would target a site-wide keyword while other pages would target your services. For example, if you operate a plumbing business, your site-wide keyword would be “Plumbers.” Yet, because you’d want to attract locals, your keyword would become “Plumbers in Your City, ST.” The same would apply for your faucet repair services. Instead of “Facet Repair Services,” your keyword would become “Faucet Repair Services on Your City, ST.”
Learn more about choosing the right keywords here. Once you’ve developed a solid understanding of how to choose them, these 26 free keyword/suggestion tools should be helpful.
Now that you have the keywords, here’s 5 techniques for implementing them into your webpages for better search rankings.
1. Meta Title & Description
A webpage’s meta title and description is what potential customers will see on search engine results pages (SERPS). The title tells what the page is about, while the description gives a short summary of the page’s content. Most website platforms make it easy to edit your meta tags. If your website is built on WordPress, download the SEO Yoast plugin.
2. URL Structure
According to search engines, URL text is a strong determinant of a webpage’s content. Your targeted keyword should be included in the URL of all webpages.
3. Content
Each webpage’s content should be about its targeted keyword, or service. Include your targeted keyword and variations of it throughout the page. Avoid listing multiple services/keywords on a single page. Doing so confuses search engines resulting in poor rankings, primarily in the more competitive industries. Also, be sure each page’s word count is above 300.
4. Header Tags
Header tags (H1, H2, H3 and so on) denote the beginning of a new section or area of a page’s content and helps search engines better understand the following content. Each page should list your targeted keyword into an H1 tag. Use H2, H3, and other tags for variations of your targeted keyword (if applicable).
5. Alt Tags
Alt tags provide a description of the contents of an image file for visitors who are unable to see images in their browser. By adding your targeted keywords to alt tags, not only does it increases the webpage’s rankings, it also allows your webpage’s images to show up when your targeted keyword is researched. For further image optimization, save your images with the targeted keyword as well.
Next Steps
Once you’ve made these edits to your website, the next step is track your results. You’ll be able to do this by setting up Google Analytics on your website. It’s a free, web analytics tool that provides lots of information about your website’s visitors and search rankings.
While these fairly, easy to implement on-site optimization techniques will increase your website’s search ranking significantly, off-site SEO techniques, such as backlink and citation building, really moves the needle.
Author Bio: Jamichael Mitchell is the founder of TruRank Marketing, a digital marketing located in North Carolina, USA. Having spent nearly a decade helping businesses achieve success online, he enjoys writing about all things digital marketing.