By Jared Atchison, co-founder of WPForms, a drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress that's used on over 4,000,000 websites.
Increasing organic traffic is one of the core objectives of leading online businesses. That's why brands worldwide strive to rank at the top among search engine recommendations on targeted queries. However, making this dream a reality is easier said than done.
Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a major role here, as it enables you to climb the search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase your site's visibility to generate more traffic. Based on my work in website optimization, here are some best practices that can help you stand out from your competition in the age of content overload.
1. Identify the right keywords.
Keywords are super important for SEO. Identifying the ones that best represent your niche and creating content around them fuels your search engine ranking and enables you to attract a relevant audience.
A common mistake made by businesses when getting started is that they target high-volume keywords and disregard whether or not the targeted queries align with what they offer. This is a recipe for disaster, as they miss the opportunity of building an authority on keywords that best represent their solutions, thus attracting junk traffic to their site.
Keyword selection demands careful consideration, so I highly recommend keeping your niche at the center when doing the research.
2. Create relevant content.
To increase your organic traffic, it's essential that the content you produce is informative and highly relevant to your audience. Search engines prefer content that caters to topical depth and facilitates easy access to information. So ensure that the content you create helps people find answers to their questions and effortlessly explore the solutions they're looking for. Creating content that addresses the queries of your audience in great detail will give you a much-needed boost in rankings and enable you to surpass your competition.
3. Optimize page titles and descriptions.
To climb the search engine rankings, it's important that you optimize your page title and description as per the targeted keyword(s) and intent. Your page title and description give a brief overview of your page to search engines and quick insight into page contents to your audience. As they are the first things users see, they should be spot-on to catch the eye of visitors.
Ideally, try to keep your page title to 50 to 60 characters (spaces included) and your description around 150 to 160. This allows you to optimize the text for all devices, be they desktop or mobile.
4. Optimize images.
We often neglect the importance of images when creating our pages. If you optimize them well, you can leverage image search and attract more visitors through it. There are a few best practices that you need to follow here:
• Add suitable titles to your images, and use targeted keywords.
• Use alt text to describe your images.
• Refrain from using crowded pictures.
• Use high-resolution images, but be mindful of image size.
Image optimization not only helps you convey your message in an interactive way but also enables you to get more traction organically.
5. Use internal links.
Internal links between pages on your site contribute to improving your search engine rankings. They make it easier for search engines to assess the information hierarchy of your site and see how you facilitate your visitors' access to information.
Internal linking not only helps you improve your search rankings but also allows you to bring traction to your dead pages by leveraging the top-performing ones. Just try to avoid linking errors, as they can have a devastating impact on your SEO.
6. Optimize URLs.
The way you construct your URLs matters when it comes to SEO. A well-structured URL facilitates information navigation and briefs search engines about the contents of the respective page.
To create a perfect URL, you should ensure that it's concise, logically constructed and keyword-optimized. Doing this will help you get better rankings compared to having longer, disorganized URLs.
7. Reduce website load time.
Google, the platform with the highest market share in the search industry, considers user experience as one of the critical indicators that dictate the SERPs. Now, imagine the experience you'd be offering if your site takes ages to load or often fails to load entirely. The average visitor expects your website to load within three seconds.
There can be different problems affecting your website's load time, such as code density, heavy images, JavaScript issues, caching problems, unnecessary plugins, excessive redirects, mediocre hosting and so on. Find the issues that affect your website's load time and fix them to ensure a sublime user experience.
8. Build quality backlinks.
Earning backlinks from reputable sites is very important when it comes to SEO: Backlinks help you build authority in your respective niche and improve your search engine rankings on intended keywords. But you have to be mindful of a few things here:
• Discourage links built via spamming.
• Avoid sponsored links.
• Make sure the backlinks aren't from topically irrelevant sites.
• Avoid backlinks from non-indexed sites.
• Ensure backlinks aren't built using the same anchor that the page targets as a keyword.
In short, try to avoid toxic links at all costs. They do more harm than good for your SEO. Be certain that all your backlinks are of high quality to score better search engine rankings.
Any one of these tips can help improve your SEO, but I recommend following all of them. These best practices are effective ways to increase your site's visitors without you having to break the bank.
