If you are relying on people finding your business and your website through google searches, then you need to put website traffic and search engine optimization (SEO) high on your priority list. The basic concept of SEO and how to succeed with website traffic seems pretty straightforward. Your goal is to optimise your website to deliver better information to search engines, such as google, to ensure your content is indexed correctly and displayed among the top search results.

With the rules constantly changing, it makes SEO seem very daunting indeed. Here are 5 facts to convince you that the effort is well worth it.

This all means, that if you are not on page one, the likelihood of getting traffic is low to impossible.

So how to succeed with SEO and improve your website rankings?

There is plenty of free information available on how to improve your website traffic, but many seem out of reach unless you are an expert. It can all seem rather overwhelming to try and make sense of it all.

Here are 8 simple but effective tips on how to improve the position of your website in search engine results. How to send more traffic to your website, increase your lead generation and generate more sales for your business.

1. Post quality content

Content is king, but only if it’s quality content. Quality content is the number one driver to help you succeed with SEO and improve your search engine rankings. Creating appropriate, quality content specifically targeted at your intended buyer audience is key.

Google’s aim is to deliver the most helpful content possible for any given search query. If your content, blogs and articles offer real value to the reader, your copy will naturally receive more social shares, more links, more referrals and ultimately a higher presence in the organic listings. It all starts with writing something worth reading.

Intelligent Marketing Content is King

Content Marketing

Write headlines for both readers and search engines

80% of people will only read your article’s headline. If your headline isn’t captivating and engaging enough to spar their interest, they’ll click away somewhere else.

 

 

 

Don’t forget your keywords

Identify a specific keyword or keyword phrase for each page on your website. Think about this through the lens of your targeted reader, how might they search to find YOU.

Don’t’ be tempted to use multiple keywords, this will create confusion as its very difficult for a webpage to achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword phrases.

If you want to rank for multiple keywords phrases for your website, you will need to make a separate webpage for each keyword phrase you are targeting. Once you’ve chosen your keyword think about:

  • using part or all of the keyword phrase in the page URL
  • use part or all of the keyword phrase in the page title
  • use part or all of the keyword phrase within the page text heading and subheadings

When you apply the above, make sure it flows naturally and that the headings make sense. You’re satisfying both readability and search engine optimization. Repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout the page, but don’t sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are primarily written with the reader in mind.

2. Content frequency

Once you’ve created some great content, don’t stop there, keep going.  You need to post content regularly.  Create a schedule for your content and stick to it. Search engines love regularly updated content as its seen as one of the best indicators of a website’s relevancy and will improve your SEO.  Aim for a piece of content once a month as a minimum, any more would be great and keep going.

If your site has fresh, exciting, informative and interesting content it will keep visitors on your page longer and keep them coming back. Content that keeps visitors for longer on your site, will improve your google rankings.

3. Use Video

Pages with video are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google search results according to a Forrester study.

Video Marketing

the power of video

As a visitor, its much easier to watch something than read about it. Adding video to your website pages can really boost brand awareness and is a great SEO tactic. A short video, can dramatically improve the amount of time someone spends on your website, potentially increasing the time from seconds to minutes. When that happens, you will definitely boost your search rankings.

 

Although producing video can feel like it comes with an expensive price tag, there are plenty of online tools to use, and you can get some pretty good results using your phone and phone apps for editing.

4. Get set up on Google My Business

Make sure you are set up on Google My Business, this is great for achieving local SEO and its free. Its simple to do, and worth taking the time. Go to Google Business to set up your account or claim your business, as sometimes Google may have already created a business page for you.

This allows you to edit the info on your business, verify contact info, add images, monitor reviews and respond, share your content with links to your website. This can give you a real boost over your competitors who have not capitalized on this free resource and will really help you succeed with SEO.

5. Have a link-worthy site

Make sure you create relevant links within the text on your webpages.  Don’t use “click here” links, write out the name of the source or destination. “Click here” has no search engine value beyond the attached URL, whereas “Intelligent Marketing lead generation” is rich with keywords and will improve your search engine rankings as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to.

Always think about linking to other pages on your site, link to relevant content as well as external links.

6. Don’t underestimate the power of images

Articles that contain images will get 94% more views according to Jeff Bullas. These are pretty compelling stats, that prove you shouldn’t be publishing pages and blogs without the using images.  A little like video, visual content is more engaging than text.

Infographics fall into this category, for more details and stats on why image is so important check out Why Infographics are so effective.

This overview on the search engine market share assembled by SparkToro, clearly demonstrates just how import it is to use image.

Search Engine Market Share 2019

source: SparkToro

7. Mobile friendly website 

Make sure you optimize your website for mobile devices. It won’t come as a surprise that mobile use continues to rise, and that includes google searches. If you want to succeed with SEO your site must be easy to use on mobile devices.

Over 70% of searches happen on mobile devises and continues to rise. Obviously, Google recognizes this and uses this to rank websites accordingly. Your website needs to be optimized for mobile users and that includes how long it takes to load your website.

Check out your own website on your mobile and see how good the experience is for your visitors.

If your site isn’t optimized, it’ll hinder the user experience, adversely affecting your ranking.

8. Be social

Make it easy to share your content on social media by including social sharing icons on all your content.

Search engines fully understand that social media commands the attention of today’s web users, which is why they take into account how often your content is linked to from a social platform such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

But it’s more than that, you can improve your SEO ranking when people share links to your website. Building a strong following will make it easier to increase – the likes, shares and links.

Conclusion

How to succeed with SEO is something you need to focus on as seeing the results can take time. Don’t get overwhelmed. Start with a few of these recommendations and gradually build on them.

Monitor your results, by checking your website traffic and search ranking.

If you need some more help getting your business to stand out, get in touch with Intelligent Marketing on hello@intelligentmarketing.uk.com