Optimizing websites to rank well on search engines has become so big that today we have entirely new industries built around it. There’s no argument for the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) because Search is the number 1 driver of traffic to websites, beating social media by more than 300%.
This is why it’s important that you optimize your site for search engines, especially Google as it currently owns 65-70% of the search engine market share.
Whether you’re planning to invest money on SEO or not, here are a few easy steps you can follow to make sure your website is Google-friendly.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Optimize Your Meta Tags
Search engine crawlers don’t see websites as we do. They only see the core elements of your HTML pages and adding Meta tags on your web pages will immensely help crawlers understand what your website is all about.
In addition to your web pages and content, optimize your site with HTML meta titles and descriptions so that Google can read and understand your website easily.
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO for WordPress blogs.
Step 2: Write Ever-Green Content
If you don’t have a blog yet, start one right now. Running a blog is not only a great way to build SEO but it’s also very effective in driving traffic to your website. Setting up a WordPress blog is easy and won’t cost you a thing.
Keep your blog regularly updated with quality content. Write articles that are helpful to readers and choose competitive topics that will last for a long time. This will help your articles to rank higher on search engines, along with your website.
Step 3: Use Keywords
Remember to optimize your web pages and blog articles for keywords to make sure your pages are discoverable on search engines.
Use Google’s Keyword Planner to find keywords that have a decent amount of average monthly searches and create content using those keywords to get better results.
Don’t overdo it, though. Google hates sites that stuff keywords in pages and it will demote your rankings.
Step 4: Image alt Tags
Similar to meta tags, img alt tags attributes alternate text for your images to describe the image for search engines. Basically, it will create tooltips for your images.
Using alt tags with your images will help your them to rank higher on Google’s Image search and bring more traffic to your website.
Step 5: Optimize Your Site For Mobile
People are now using mobile devices to browse the web more than desktop devices. Google understood this more than anyone. This is why Google now ranks mobile-friendly sites higher in its results pages.
Use Google’s Mobile-friendly test tool to see if your website verifies as a mobile-optimized site. If it doesn’t pass the test, then you should seriously consider improving your website design.
Step 6: Building Backlinks
The more links you have from authority websites the better Google will rank your pages.
There are many ways you can build backlinks: guest blogging on popular sites, posting on forums, leaving comments on other websites, or even buying quality links from blogs. Choose one or more of these strategies and get a lot of backlinks to your site.
In addition to promoting your website and articles on your official Facebook and Twitter pages, invest some more time on sharing links on other social networks as well.
Google pays special attention to websites that have Stellar SEO practices with more social signals. So, register with as many social networks as you can and start sharing your links to build traffic and authority.
Once you’ve completed all the steps, be patient and wait for the results. It might take a few weeks, or sometimes even 4 to 5 months for new websites to start receiving search engine traffic. Don’t expect overnight results but keep optimizing your website.
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