Assuming you’ve built your website on an updated CMS and your site contains plenty of content relating to keywords you’re wanting search engines to index you for, there are still many steps you’ll want to take to ensure your site makes the cut.
Repeatedly dumping keywords onto your web pages, with no resourceful content, will likely be regarded as spam by visiting search bots that index your site. Clearly organize all of your website’s content, using appropriate page headlines, while ensuring that you don’t get too wordy on any single page.
The SEO Hard Wiring.
Want to know what keeps your site off of a first page Google result and buried deep within the bowels of cyberspace? Take an objective look at all the pages on your website:
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Are your URLs clean and readable?
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Are there targeted keywords contained within your URL strings?
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Are your page headlines and paragraph text focused on a singular (keyword) topic?
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Do all of your images contain alt text and titles?
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Are there credible websites out there that link to your domain?
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Are there appropriate page titles in place that contain targeted keywords and relate to the page topic?
Try to see to it that your website visitors and Google Bots won’t be lost or confused as to the main topic of conversation on each of your pages. Remember that trying to rank for a wide variety of topics, products or services will be tough if your website is the new kid on the block. Stick to keywords that will bring you buyers of products that you know you’re good at selling -ditch the smaller piece of the pie for now. Ensure all of your text is readable and not contained within images or fancy graphics that search engines can’t read. As mentioned above, avoid diluting your content with too many topics on any one page, instead, create a new page that will either expand on the topic, or start a new one.
Keywords: Choose Wisely.
If you are attempting to rank your Website for non-branded keywords, such as the keywords that do not contain the name of your business, make sure you are targeting these with realistic goals in mind, and with keywords that will directly benefit your business. These days, keyword searches conducted by consumers are increasing in length and those longer-tailed keywords are usually indicative of someone who is at the latter stages of the purchasing cycle.
Example:
• A Kelowna based retailer that sells mountain bikes, may want to focus on ranking for keyword searches their local customers are likely to use to find them, such as “kelowna mountain bikes”, or “mountain bikes store Kelowna”.
The above example narrows a search query to a specific product type along with a geographical modifier -in this case “Kelowna”. This is a strong indication of someone who wants to purchase within a specific area. Ranking your website for descriptive search queries, or long-tailed keywords, is more likely to bring you faster SERP success along with more qualified traffic. Trying to battle for first page positioning on short-tailed, generic keywords, will take a tremendous amount of time and resources, and may not be of any benefit for your business. A good place to start is with Google’s Keyword Tool. Just be sure to research those “exact match” numbers and searches that coincide with your geographic location, unless you are offering products or services on a national level.
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