When it comes to building a website everyone has the same goal – to get high exposure on Google and other popular search engine platforms. It’s a realistic goal too, without search engine exposure it is far harder for new customers to find it. You can build the best website ever, but, without rankings it can never reach peak productivity. Google rankings are crucial.
While SEO experts are eager to help you out with this challenge it can often require a fairly hefty budget that not everyone has put aside in the quest to conquer the online world. Here are a few key tips to keep in mind when you develop a website or improve your current webs item design and structure. These tips are aimed to gain organic (non-paid) rankings, of course if or when you do paid advertising or source the assistance of an SEO company you are in an even better position to boost rankings even higher.
1. Think like a searcher
When you know the type of people you want to attract to your website you can easily step into their shoes and think about what they would search for. Using these keywords throughout your website helps to make your content relevant and boosts your exposure based on these categories. Mix in products and services keywords with location and suburb data to help localise the traffic you are appealing to.
2. Research searcher behaviour
Google has this wonderful tool that appears when you start to type in the search field; it auto-populates a variety of search string options below the text box. This isn’t just a quirky little feature, this is actually showing you the most common phrases people have been searching for and it will keep giving you solutions until you type something no one has looked for recently. You can use this data to curb your content and become the solution to the questions and search topics. Start typing in your core keywords and see what comes up, then use that data to pad out your website with relevant information.
3. Dynamic content
While your website has a certain amount of content that just doesn’t change you should try to inject a large portion that is dynamic and constantly updating and changing. Each time you freshen up your content Google sits up and pays attention. This pushes your results to the top because it is more relevant than a website which has not been updated recently. One of the best ways to constantly inject dynamic content is by implementing a blog or news area. This can house latest projects, news, articles, how-to guides, customer feedback, latest releases and much more. You can easily create a feed that goes from the ‘news’ area to the home page and other internal content pages which creates a dynamic flow throughout your entire website. Another side benefit is that your customers will be tempted to come back to your website time and again to find out what’s new. Even as little as one article per month will make a difference.
4. Get social
Link your website to social media – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn – the more places you shine a spotlight on yourself the higher your exposure becomes. Many corporate entities shy away from social media but there are easy ways to integrate it so it becomes a newsfeed source rather than a source of high interaction. In this day and age it is a necessity.
5. Make it local – register a .com.au
Without fail a relevant local website will rank above a non-local website because Search engines will deem it more ‘relevant’. For this very reason a .com.au domain will often outrank a .com or variation domain name/URL. Registration for a .com.au is only $49.95 for two years and you can keep your old domain and simply redirect traffic to it.
6. Guest posts
If you don’t have time to add content to your website like it’s going out of fashion you can easily outsource or invite guest writers to do it for you. While there may be small fees involved it can give you a fresh voice and point of view plus the reassurance that it is working even when you don’t have time to dedicate to it.
By the same token you can offer up your articles to others and become a voice in more places than simply your own website. As you sign off as the author be sure to include your website link as this too will create traffic flow.
7. Get visual
While many love a good read there are far more that are captured by image or video inspiration. A mix of mediums helps appeal on a greater level. With the phone technology available today it takes no time at all to capture and load content.
8. Ditch flash
If it isn’t cross-browser and platform compatible don’t use it. Flash websites are not widely supported which can cripple viewing potential and search engines cannot read the text content within. As a result a Flash driven website is missing not only keywords but dynamic content as well.
9. Claim your local search advantage
If you are a local business make sure you claim your listing on Google, Yahoo and Bing. It only takes 5 minutes to claim your profile, complete the fields and load the listing. The future of search engine results is localised results as relevance skyrockets. If you haven’t done it yet – what are you waiting for?!
10. Check your data
Type your business name into the core search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) and double check all third party websites that list your details have the correct information. This is particularly vital for business directory websites. If old data is stored take some time to get in touch and update the records.
11. Mobile friendly
With the increase in web-capabable smart mobile phones came the increase in mobile-friendly websites. A mobile friendly website design is highly beneficial in today’s market to ensure you aren’t missing out on potential customers and to supply a full user-experience. If you go to the trouble to offer an easier way to do business via all core communication methods this further reflects back to your business as a whole. The fact you go the extra mile will not be overlooked. (Oh, and you will nab the traffic your competitors are missing out on just because they aren’t mobile friendly).
12. The test of time
While content is ‘King’ and links are ‘Queen’ a website that has been around since the dawn of time will also be a powerful tool in itself. Age does play a certain role when it comes to search engine rankings and combine that with the tips above and you can’t go wrong.
