When it comes to how to SEO optimize a website, you will be focusing on several key factors, such as website content, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and site structure. You need to ensure that your website content is aligned with Google’s algorithm and your user intent. By optimizing your site’s SEO, you also establish trustworthiness and authority. By optimizing your business website, you can not only attract relevant traffic organically but also boost your site’s rankings and better user experience.
Understanding the Importance of Optimizing Your Website
Before we proceed to learn how to improve SEO for your website, you might want to learn about the importance and benefits of optimizing your website first. More than eighty percent of internet users research products and services online before making purchases. More than ninety percent of online purchases start with search engines, such as Google.
Since a majority of purchases are made online, it has dramatically changed the way potential buyers behave. This aspect perfectly indicates why businesses are emerging on social media more than ever before. Your store or business relies on the following to stand out in the SERPs:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Website content
Compared to running ads, search engine optimization is low-cost. However, the focus here is on white-hat SEO or organic SEO, so you can ensure that you don’t get penalized by Google. With the help of white-hat SEO, you will rank higher and also increase organic website traffic. You can effectively do so through better keyword rankings.
Here are some other SEO-optimizing your website:
- Build brand credibility
- Build brand authority
- Boost ranking in search engines
- Organic lead generation
- Minimal keep-up with organic SEO
While you focus on optimizing your website, we recommend staying up-to-date on the latest trends as Google is constantly changing its algorithm, and you want to stay aligned with Google’s guidelines.
How to Maximize SEO of Your Website
There are several things you can do to maximize the SEO of your website. You might want to increase the loading speed of your website and ensure that it is mobile-friendly. Your website speed directly impacts your site’s ranking on Google, as the top results usually load quicker than the rest.
Another way to maximize the SEO of your website is to get the site inside featured snippets. It is important to mention here that nearly one hundred percent of featured snippets link to first-page results, so when ranking a site for the primary keyword, you might want to write a little section that can perfectly work as a featured snippet box.
To maximize the SEO of your website, focus on lowering your site’s bounce rate as well. One effective way to do so is by embedding video content in your page.
How to SEO Optimize A Website – Understanding the Key Steps
Let us talk about how to SEO optimize a website page so that it ranks higher on Google for the dominant keyword that you optimize for. Let us walk through the steps one by one.
Do the Keyword Research
The first step for effective search engine optimization is to do the keyword research. You want to do the keyword research on the topic and the page it is related to. If you are creating a page on commercial plumbing, for example, then that is the topic of the page. So, you want to do keyword research to assess what keywords people are searching for related to commercial plumbing. One way to do that is to go to Google and type in commercial plumbing.
Google Autofill will show you a number of keywords related to that topic that people commonly search. Make sure to write down those words.
Use Google Keyword Planner
You might as well use the keyword planner tool. When you are using the tool, you can just type in your keyword, such as commercial plumbing, and Google will get back to you with all the terms related to that keyword that people also search for.
Google will even show you the search volume per month of those searches. Take notes of these, too. This will help you find a grouping of keywords related to the main idea of your web page. This way, you can optimize your page for all the various terms.
Select Your Golden Keyword
The next step to SEO-optimize your website is to select your golden keyword based on your keyword research and analysis, which also establishes the importance of technical SEO.
Ideally, the golden keyword is a long-tail keyword, which means that it is a keyword that comprises three or more words. This keyword contains your best keywords as well as multiple phrases and terms within it.
For instance, if your business is commercial plumbing and that is the best keyword, then you might use it for your golden keyword, “New York Commercial Plumbing Company,” because this is a four-word phrase that can be your golden keyword as it has multiple keywords in it.
So, with your golden keyword, you will be really getting your bang for your buck because it has multiple keywords within it. You should know that the value of the golden keyword is that it is the dominant keyword for which you are going to optimize your website page. This is also the keyword that you really want to rank high for, which is the main keyword and all its variations.
Optimize Your Web Page for the Golden Keyword
The next step is to optimize your website page for that golden keyword that you chose in your previous step. So, you want to start with your title tag on the page and place it at the front of the title tag because Google gives more weight to the front of the title tag. So, put in your title tag and then also put in the main heading on the page and at least one other subheading on the page.
Of course, you will be integrating it into your website content naturally. This is the key to optimizing your website page for that golden keyword so that Google views it as a great page for that particular topic and ranks you on top.
Integrate Keywords in Your Content
Next, you can proceed to integrate other keywords into your content. We are referring to the keywords that you noted during your research page. However, while you are at it, make sure that you don’t resort to keyword stuffing, as it will make it spammy. You should ensure that the keywords appear naturally in the content and that the content reads well.
By naturally integrating those keywords in your content, you will make sure that Google recognizes your page not only in terms of ranking well for the variations of the “golden keyword” that you had but also in terms of all other potential keywords related to the subject.
Focus on Internal Linking
After creating informative and unique content using that golden keyword and other relevant keywords, your next step must be to create internal links to your web page for that primary keyword. What this means is that you will go to other web pages on your website – that can be blog articles or other web pages that you may have, such as service pages.
You should put the primary keyword into that page and then proceed to make that keyword a link, which will link back to the page that it is associated with. This is how you will build inbound links to that page on your website. This way, you will be giving “votes” in the eyes of Google to rank what web page is higher.
Basically, this is how your website will tell Google that this is the web page on the website that is the most important when it comes to your niche or the primary keyword, which is why Google should rank that page on top.
Asses The Technical SEO of Your Website
You must also focus on the technical aspect of SEO to optimize your website. If there are issues with technical SEO, it will impact Google’s ability to crawl and index your business website. Technical SEO issues can slow down your web page speed and also impact user experience, which in turn will hurt your website’s rankings.
To improve your website’s technical SEO, you must ensure that your website is crawlable and that Google can access your website and index your page content. Look out for common crawlability issues, such as blocked URLs, redirects, and the absence of XML sitemaps.
Also, watch out for a poor link structure, as it might prevent Google and other search engines from navigating to certain web pages. This aspect perfectly explains why is technical seo important and why you should focus on the technical SEO of your website.
Always Track Your Rankings
Understandably, you want to improve your website’s seo performance, but you won’t see immediate improvements in your rankings. During the first few weeks, you can expect to see some traction that might start to happen. Nonetheless, over the course of nearly three to six months and even beyond, you can start to really see some traction as your web page might start working its way up in search results.
You might be on page eight in the beginning, but after patience and dedication, you might be ranking in the top ten search results within one year, which means that you might be ranking in the top ten. The point is that you must track your website’s performance as it will make you happy with your efforts and results.
When Should You Consider Updating Your SEO Plan?
You might have the perfect SEO plan and strategies in place, but you should know that you must update your SEO plan at least every three to six months. Why, you might ask? The reason is that if you want to see different results or better results, you cannot continue sticking to the same plan.
Since Google is constantly updating ranking standards, SEO algorithms change simultaneously, too. Here are some signs that indicate that you need to update your SEO plan:
- Your website speed is slow.
- Your website is ranking poorly.
- Your website has a high bounce rate.
- Your website is difficult to navigate.
- Your website is getting less organic traffic.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know how to SEO optimize a website, you might have already gotten the idea that this is not for the faint-hearted. It is a tough undertaking. There are many interconnected practices that you have to work with in order to leverage SEO for your business website. Now, if you are new to the SEO game, you might want to avail yourself of the services of an esteemed digital agency like ours, that will have all the tools and an action plan ready to help you with ranking your website higher in search results. With a digital agency working for you, you will see amazing results and not get lost along the way.
FAQs
What is the most common goal of search engine optimization (seo) poisoning?
A malicious internet user can leverage SEO poisoning as a way to boost the rank of a malicious website and get more website traffic. This technique makes malicious websites appear more authentic to internet users who assume that the top-ranking site is the most credible.
How to Increase SEO Ranking of A Website?
There are several ways you can increase the SEO ranking of your website. You might want to start with improving the quality of your content. Make sure that your website pages have high-quality, informative, and unique content. Make sure to integrate the right keywords naturally in your website content.
What is White-Hat SEO?
With white-hat SEO, you will essentially adhere to Google guidelines and organic techniques to boost your website. Some of the organic techniques include creating high-quality and informative content. Also, focus on maintaining website integrity and providing a good user experience to your target audience.
What is Black-Hat SEO?
Black-hat SEO is everything that is against white-hat and organic SEO. Black-hat SEO comprises unethical and deceptive methods such as keyword-stuffing, buying backlinks, and violating Google guidelines to boost a page’s rank.
