SEO Basics: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Website

SEO Basics: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Website
2021-05-10
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SEO is the best way to drive organic traffic to your website and rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). That’s why it’s very important to optimize your website for search engines. It’s also the most affordable one if you do it yourself. No wonder more and more bloggers and website owners use it as a main digital and content marketing technique.

Optimizing a website may sound very difficult, but it’s not, at least not at a basic level. If you know the basics of SEO, you can do it yourself. Of not, well, there are SEO experts you can hire. But, if you have some knowledge and want to save money, it’s best to do it yourself. To help you out with that, here are 10 ways to optimize your website. Let’s check them out!

  1.  
    • Create a page title that includes your primary keyword;
    • Use the primary keywords in your headline, if possible at the beginning ao it can be visible in the slug;
    • Make sure your keyword density is 2-3% max and your primary keyword 0.5 - 2.5% in the body;
    • Use alt text for images and include the right keywords in it; however, if you use an image that doesn’t correspond to your keywords, write what it shows. If it’s a red umbrella, write that, don’t write “Buy waterproof cellphone cases”;
    • Write unique meta description per each page that describes the content on it;
    • Create a clear, simple, and relevant URL: this means the URL should tell what the content on that page is about, usually, it’s the title;
    • Use headlines and subheadlines to make the text more readable and user-friendly;
    • Use internal links to connect your articles one to another (wherever possible) and keep visitors longer on your site;
    • Use SSL/HTTPS to make sure your website is secure.
    • Backlink to other relevant, reputable, and high-authority websites;
    • Do guest-blogging;
    • Use Google My Business, backlinks to local sites, use keywords relevant to your location, and have a separate page of your site in your native language to optimize your site for local SEO;
    • Create optimized and captivating PPC campaigns;
    • Connect your website to your social media pages and vice versa; ask people to share your content on social media, connect with influencers by mentioning them in your posts.

  2. Create a Unique Content with Value and Keep It Fresh

    3. Readers love unique content as so does Google, which is why it ranks higher the sites with original content. Make sure it’s relevant to the title and your website, has at least 700-800 words, and contains the right keywords.

    Also, make sure your content is always fresh, not outdated. You can achieve that by regularly creating new content, at least a few articles per week, and updating the older content.

  3. Use the Right Keywords

    4. Keywords play an extremely important role in ranking on SERP as they help search engines find your content. To make sure you use the right keywords, you have to do keyword research. You can use Neil Patel’s Ubbersuggest Tool or the Google Keyword Planner to find keywords. Of course, there are plenty of other keyword tools available online, both free and paid.

    The aim is to find relevant keywords that are low-competitive yet highly searched for since those will bring you, visitors. Go for long-tail keywords like “Buy waterproof cellphone cases” since they contain more words than the short ones. Once, you find the most suitable keywords, write them down, then include them in your content, and make sure the keywords look natural in it.

  4. Do On-Page SEO

    5. On-page SEO refers to using headlines, title tags, meta description, header tags, internal links, keyword optimization, URL slugs, alt text, and SSL/HTTPS.

    To optimize your website on-page, you should do the following:

  5. Do Off-Page SEO

    6. Off-page SEO refers to all the ways in which you optimize your site externally including backlinks, local SEO, PPC, social signals, and domain authority.

    To optimize your site off-page, you need to:

  6. Use Landing Pages

    7. If you sell something on your site, it’s best to use landing pages. They are visually appealing, thus encouraging people to click on them. There are many landing page generators you can use to create landing pages yourself. Make sure they include the primary keyword in the title and the body.

  7. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

    8. Most people today use their smartphones over computers and tablets to search the internet, read news, go on social media, etc. That’s why you should make your site mobile-friendly. Plus, Google has a mobile-first index which means you’ll probably rank higher on SERP. And, the best way to have a classic website and mobile-friendly website is to create a responsive design.

  8. Speed Up Your Website’s Loading Time

    9. No one wants to wait for more than 3 or 4 seconds to see the content of the page they searched for. That’s why it’s important to have website pages that load within 2-3 seconds. The website speed becomes even more important this year since Google includes the three core web vitals as metrics for ranking on search engines.

    Therefore, you should regularly test your site’s loading speed and go to Google Speed Insights to see if everything is ok or some things need to be improved. Some of the ways to reduce the loading time include compressing images, choosing a better host, using a Content Delivery Network, using website caching, reducing the number of plugins and CSS and JavaScript files, and more.

  9. Analyze Your Website

    10. In order to get the bigger picture of how your website performs and see what’s good and what needs to be optimized for search engines, you need to analyze your entire website. You can use Google Search Console traffic data and behavior reports to understand the possible issues. Also, there are many tools to help you do that like SEMRush Website Audit, Google Analytics, GTMetrics, Crazy Frog, and WooRank.