9 Simple SEO Tips & Tricks
If you’re in retail, you’ve surely gotten one of those phone calls. “We’ve noticed that your website isn’t listed in most major search engines like Google. We can guarantee a number one spot on search engine rankings.” Who are these people? Why do they call all the time? And why do they call even when you are listed in Google (maybe even on top!)? Even Google gets these emails and phone calls. How stupid?! Here’s the deal, don’t buy in to the lie. These guys are crooks in my book – preying on people who don’t know anything about organic search.
So, let’s talk about SEO or “Search Engine Optimization.” What is it? Why is it important? SEO is important because everyone wants their site to come up on Google when someone searches for your products or services, but you have to approach SEO the correct way.
So what are the best ways to optimize your site for search engines. Below is a list of our top tips to increasing your SEO.
- Use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that have high search volume, but are less popular. This will help you to reach your intended audience without being steamrollered by bigger more powerful websites. Also, be sure to use keyword phrases and not just single words. These phrases are treated the same and single words in most search engines.
- Keep the titles of your page short and sweet! This is important for two reasons. First is because the search result heading will show up properly if the title is short. Second, and more importantly, no one wants to read a super long title. It’s pointless! That’s what your content is for. (I also personally don’t approve of books with stupidly long titles like “SEO for Experts – a guide to all SEO experts written by an SEO expert for the 21st Century.” Why?!!!)
- Image optimization. This is often overlooked, but page load speed is a factor in Google’s algorithm now. So if your site is bogged down by heavy content like images that haven’t been optimized, you SEO will suffer. For WordPress, I recommend EWWW Image Optimizer. Check out our video explaining how to use EWWW Image Optimizer for WordPress.
- Make sure your hosting is fast. This is in the same vein as image optimization. If your site loads slow, your SEO will suffer. Shared hosting is not fast no matter what they tell you. Get the fastest and most dedicated hosting that you can afford. It will make your site users happy too!
- Write a meta description for each of your pages and posts. Keep it 156 characters or less. If you can’t explain the content of your page or post in less than 156 characters, then your page or post is probably too long.
- Make sure your URL is optimized and SEO friendly. Don’t use words like “and,” “of,” “the,” etc.
- Use headings in your content. The use of H2 and H3 tags will guide the search engine to the topic of your content.
- Use a focus keyword. You should have one focus keyword for each of your posts and pages. Remember that search engines treat keyword phrases the same as keywords. Just be sure that your keyword or keyword phrase appears in your header, title, content, URL, and so on.
- Lastly, but most importantly, write relevant and interesting content. Here’s the thing, if your content is lame, no one is going to go to your site. There are no tricks here, just keep your content awesome!
If you are using a CMS like WordPress, download a plugin like WordPress SEO by Yoast. Tools like this are invaluable in helping you optimize your content. Creating meta descriptions, ensuring keyword placement, Google search preview, url optimization, and more can all be accomplished by using SEO tools.
There are so many things you can do to better your SEO, but hiring some bozo to do it for you is not going to help. In most cases it will actually hamper your SEO in the long run. The Golden Rule of SEO is make sure your content is good and that people can find your site. That’s it folks. SEO is not rocket science. Now get out there and optimize your pages!
