Seo my website
If you need a hand at getting your website up the SERP rankings you have come to the right place.
In this article I’m going to cover in detail how to SEO my website or more specifically how-to SEO your website.
You have done all the hard work of finding a good domain name that suits your niche, you have picked out a WordPress theme and started to build your website based on some keyword research that you have done.
The next step is to optimize your website to a point where it will be successful in the organic searches meaning you won’t have to pay for that traffic, it will come to you naturally.
To be successful in today’s highly competitive organic search rankings you need to combine a number of tasks that are important both on page and off page.
Down the years there has been an increased focus towards off page strategies like building links and other technical aspects.
To be honest off page SEO won’t make any difference to your sites rankings if you don’t give a lot of attention to on page SEO or search engine optimization.
On page SEO is the skill of publishing unique, relevant, and interesting content and optimizing the headlines, images, videos and html tags so that your site will rank higher in the search engine rankings.
By using the best SEO tactics, you will not only ensure that your site ranks well but also ranks as an authoritative, trusted and respected site in your niche.
Why on page SEO is so important
Think of on page SEO as a way of communicating with search engine robots, of course you are writing for content for human beings but SEO is the way to make it easier for the search engines to understand what your website is about in more detail.
Once this important step is achieved search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and others can match the internet search query with your relevant content.
Today’s modern search engine have become very clever at understanding what the person is searching for and delivering the relevant answer to that question.
You need to adapt
To cater for the exact precision of the search engine you need to adapt by ensuring that your site and all of its content is fully optimized in line with the latest SEO techniques.
On page SEO where should you start?
If you haven’t already done so it starts with your website url or domain name, this is the name of your online store, it’s the address that people will use to find your site.
Pick a memorable domain name make it short with no hashtags or special characters, use a dot com domain with a relevant niche keyword in the title.
Write titles and descriptions for each page
Write unique titles and a description for each page because this is what Google will show to the person that is searching for that information, put a few keywords and keyword phrases in about 160-character maximum description.
Take the time and make this meta tag description as interesting as possible so that the person reading it will be curious enough to want to click on the link to find out more information.
Use anchor text
Keep in mind as you are writing your content to include anchor text, anchor text is simply a word or phrase that is hyperlinked to another page on your site or to an external website.
A hyperlink is simply the anchor text that when clicked on takes the website visitor to another part of the site or to an affiliate link.
An affiliate link is an anchor text that is hyperlinked and brings the site visitor to a relevant affiliate product or service.
By creating effective anchor links throughout your site makes it easier for your visitor to find everything on your site and it is good for SEO in the eyes of the search engines.
For example, let’s say that I wrote ” to be the best at finding keywords for your site you need to use this (anchor text affiliate link) keyword tool” hopefully you get the idea.
Effective anchor text is an excellent way to boost your SEO rankings however don’t forget that excessive use of affiliate links will hurt your rankings, my advice is to use a maximum of six per page of 1,000 words.
How to use headers
Use a website template like the one here, it’s important that each page has a structure to it, so having a title with your relevant keyword is the place to start, put that in the H1 as the title, keep your content in bite size pieces write about two to three lines keep it concise and easy to understand.
The headline in the second paragraph should be in the H2 and your keyword should be in the first three lines before you move onto the next paragraph. Follow this structure all the way down to the end of your content by using H1 at the top, H2 following that and H3 to the end.
How to use images
I’m not in favour of using too many images but at the same time use enough to keep the content interesting and to break up the look of the page.
Search engines don’t have any difficulty understanding text but do struggle a bit understanding what images are about.
In this case you need to add alt text to your images, alt text is a short description telling the search engine what the image is all about, make this as accurate as possible and if possible, put a keyword in the description.
Site speed
You may have noticed how little time people will spend waiting for a site to load, in other words your site speed is of critical importance in the eyes of the search engines it is an important factor when it comes to your search engine rankings.
A rule of thumb is your site should load in less than 3 seconds you can check your sites load speed in Google site speed analyser here.
What can slow down your site speed?
If you are using WordPress for your site there are literally thousands of plug ins available to you, if you use too many of these your site speed will be affected.
Similarly if you chose a WordPress theme that is cumbersome it can affect your site speed. Pick a theme that has a responsive design.
Its important to use images on your pages but they must be the same size, you can achieve this by using an image resize and each page will load faster.
How to have a Mobile friendly site.
According to statics released by Google more than half of all internet searches are done on a mobile phone, so your site must be mobile friendly this will also help your SEO strategy.
When you pick a theme in WordPress check that the content you have produced including images looks good on your own mobile phone before you publish it.
Then you can do a Google mobile friendly test to make sure everything is working fine; on that subject my advice is that you open a free Google account.
Google has some free services
Google is the biggest search engine in the world with over 60% of searches conducted there by having a free Google account you can avail of one free tool Google analytics this is an invaluable tool to keep track of your website visitors. (highly recommend)
The technical stuff
If you are like me and don’t have a clue about all of the technical stuff that goes on in the background associated with websites then I suggest that you use this service and take away all of the worry allowing you to get on and do the important SEO stuff!
Promoting your website
It’s great that you have done all the hard work, writing unique easy to understand content using images with alt text, using content with H1, H2, and H3 structure using video and anchor text to make your website user friendly.
Now the work begins to promote your site by using social media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many others.
YouTube
YouTube was bought by Google in 2006, too give you an idea of how important YouTube is in terms of searches done on the internet, it is now the second largest search engine in the world.
YouTube has to be right up there in terms of your SEO strategy, you can utilize the power of video to drive traffic to your site.
I have written a comprehensive training on how to get started on building your own YouTube channel you can find that here.
Facebook is probably one of the oldest social media channels, people say it is on the decline but I feel that it should be a part of promoting your website strategy. If you don’t already have a Facebook account, I suggest that you read my training on how to promote your business on Facebook.
Pinterest is a totally different concept to other social media platforms in the sense that it uses highly attractive graphics and images with a small amount of content that links to external websites. I recommend that you open a Pinterest account, use this free tool to make stunning graphics and post as much as you can on this platform.
It will take time but as long as you keep putting up interesting looking images that Ink back to your site you will attract people that are interested in your niche and you will build a following meaning more visitors to your website.
Twitter has been around for a long time, it is a platform where you send out short tweets on a regular basis with a link back to your site, again it suits some types of business so it is worth a try. My friend Neil has written a very good article on how to use Twitter for your business.
It too me a while to actually understand what the word LinkedIn actually stands for, the idea came from the notion that all types of professionals and businesses could set up a LinkedIn account include a profile and put posts up as often as they wanted to.
In this way other employers could look at your profile or business and decide for not if they want to be a part of your network, in this way a person or business can promote themselves to a wider audience.
Basically, LinkedIn is a platform for professionals to network with each other so I believe that if you have a website that you want to share with professional people then LinkedIn is a good place to promote yourself.
Conclusion
The best tactics to SEO my website or more specifically your website are based around solid SEO activities like picking a good domain name, picking a fast mobile friendly website theme, using a quality keyword tool, writing unique engaging content, use the H1, H2 and H3 headline tags, use anchor text, use descriptive alt text for images.
Promote your site by using the many social media platforms out there, start with YouTube, use Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn keep posting every day, don’t give up it will take time no one knows how long but persistence and patience pays off.