4 Ways to Improve the SEO Efforts of Your Business

When it comes to running your business, there are many things to manage. While overseeing your website may not seem like the highest priority, having a strong online presence is one of the most important factors in attracting customers. A well-designed website that provides an easy-to-navigate user experience and keyword-based educational content will effectively position your brand in search engine results.

While there are many aspects to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you don’t have to be overwhelmed. Following are four simple and effective ways to improve the SEO efforts of your business and keep ahead of the competition.

1. Produce high quality content

To drive more traffic to your website and increase its popularity, you need to give visitors a reason to keep coming back. Creating quality content generates interest in your business and grows your audience. Providing engaging, useful information ensures that you’ll have relevant and frequently updated content for search engines to index.

Google algorithms consider content quality more than ever before. Your content must match your keywords, headlines, and meta descriptions. Be sure to write content for customers and not the search engines. Google algorithms are getting so sophisticated that they penalize content for keyword stuffing.

Content doesn’t just mean text, either. Videos have significant engagement, and photos are equally important. The ideal content for your website will depend on your type of traffic. Test out different styles and monitor traffic to see what your audience wants from your website.

You don’t have to produce new content every day, but regular updates mean your visitors have a reason to visit your site, and you’ll also be creating fresh content for the search engines.

2. Optimize your images

One of the best ways to keep a customer’s attention is to use images. Images need to be of a good quality, in the correct aspect ratio, with good resolution, and of a size large enough to be visible across devices.

Images are also important to SEO. In order for search engines to recognize your images, ensure they have alt tags on them and include keywords in the filename. Google can’t see your images, but it can read the descriptions you write in the alt-text. Alt-text should be clear, descriptive, concise and not stuffed with keywords. Alt-text is also used by screen reader software to describe images to people with visual impairments.

When writing alt-text for SEO purposes, be specific but also representative of the topic of the webpage the image is supporting. Use both the image’s subject and context to guide you. Only include your article’s target keyword if it’s easily included in your alt text. If not, consider semantic keywords, or just the most important terms within a longtail keyword.

The more images you optimize, the better your SEO strategy will be moving forward.

3. Use inbound and outbound links

Building a network of outbound links through good website to website relationships will improve your SEO. When you have more quality sites linking to your website (inbound) and you are linking to other quality websites (outbound), the more authoritative Google determines your website to be.

Likes, comments, repins, and retweets, all play into the weight given to your links. If you create content people want to share, you can create more inbound links. “Content” doesn’t always have to be as elaborate as a blog post or whitepaper, content can also refer to tweets or Facebook posts as well. By posting engaging social content, you will improve the SEO efforts of your business.

When you link to relevant websites, you tell search engines about your content and create a connection from your website to others. Outbound links improve the content of your post and create the opportunity for a future inbound link and targeted traffic. Always try to make outbound links open in new tab to prevent your bounce rate from unnecessarily increasing.

4. Create clean, focused, and optimized URLs

When it comes to your website, your URLs are often the first thing Google and customers will see. URLs are the building blocks of an effective site hierarchy, passing equity through your domain and directing users to their desired destinations. Getting URL structure right involves a complex blend of usability and accessibility factors.

Using the keywords you’re targeting for rankings in your URLs is a solid idea. Keywords in the URL help indicate to those who see your URL that they’re getting what they want and expect. Also, keywords in the URL show up in search results, and the URL is one of the most prominent elements searchers consider when selecting which site to click.

As a rule of thumb, you don’t need to include every single preposition or conjunction from the page title in your URL. Words like “and” or “the” are just distractions and can be stripped out of the URL altogether.

Remember to think ahead when planning your site structure. You should minimize the number of redirects on your domain, and it’s easier to do this if you don’t require wholesale changes to URLs.

A Partner to Support Your Growth

Implementing strong, quality SEO on your website boosts the visibility of your business in search results.  It takes time to improve the SEO efforts of your business, and changes don’t happen overnight. The best place to start is by focusing on addressing issues within your website one by one.

Our experienced team at PlainsCapital is equipped with the knowledge and expertise to help navigate your business’ next step. For personal insight and support to help meet your business goals, call a PlainsCapital representative today at 866.762.8392.