SEO takes time – however there are ways and means to speed things up and improve your rankings faster. These often overlooked strategies can be a fantastic way to ensure your site has some quick SEO wins and they can make all the difference between your site making money and it not.
Correct Any 404 Errors
Nothing is worse than finally getting someone to visit your site only to have them encounter a page with a 404 error. Not only does this lead to a higher bounce rate but it also irritates users, meaning that they are unlikely to come back.
Using a crawler like Screaming Frog is a good way to find these errors. Redirect any error pages to working pages on your site to instantly improve your SEO.
Get Rid Of Temporary Redirects
Temporary redirects, which are also called 302 redirects, are designed to temporarily send visitors and web crawlers to a different page on your site. They are typically used for situations where the original content is currently unavailable but will eventually be available again. Unfortunately, these redirects don’t provide any type of SEO benefit to the pages where they are sending traffic.
If you aren’t ever going to use the original page again, you should swap out any temporary redirects with 301 redirects. That way, the new page can benefit from the link.
Replace Complex URLs With Search-Engine-Friendly Alternatives
Search engines prefer URLs that are well structured and easy to read. Ideally, they should also include the keywords that you are targeting. Structuring your URLs like this allows visitors to get an idea of what each page is about before clicking on the link. It also makes it easier for web crawlers to understand the topic of the content. A good URL would look something like “http://yoursite.com/subcategory/targeted-keyword”. Visit the Permalinks page to adjust the URL display settings in WordPress.
Set Up A Google My Business Page For Your Company
If you cater to a local audience, having a Google My Business page is a must. When setting up your profile, include your phone number and email address, your physical address, the hours that you are open, and a description of your business. This makes it a lot easier for people to find your business when searching on Google or using Google Maps.
Make Sure Every Page Has A Title And Subheadings
Clients who have never focused on SEO before usually have pages on their sites that are lacking title tags or headings. Visit every page on the site to make sure that a well-optimized title tag is present. Add headings to each page, as well, including relevant keywords. Most WordPress sites place the title of the page in an H1 tag. Each page should only have a single H1 tag that includes the targeted keyword. Use other heading tags like H2 for subheadings, making sure to include relevant keywords.
Craft A Well-Written Meta Title And Description
Spend some time coming up with a title that really stands out. Adding numbers or special characters to the title can make it easier to see in the search listings. The title itself should accurately represent the content of the page in a way that is clear and easy to understand.
Well-crafted title tags and descriptions can increase your click-through rate. Relevant titles help people know what to expect, which can reduce your bounce rate, as well.
Add Alt Tags To Any Images
Most clients don’t take the time to add alt tags to their images when setting up their site. By adding relevant alt tags to the images and making sure that they tie in closely with the keywords in the title, it makes it easier for Google to understand what the page is about. This can lead to higher rankings for your targeted keywords. Don’t worry about re-uploading the images. Instead, just add alt tags to the existing images and wait for them to get crawled.
Increase The Length Of The Content
The term ‘content is king’ has been used so often in the world of SEO that it is practically a cliché. The reason that you hear it so often is because it is true. Google favors sites that provide high-quality content. In most cases, that means that sites that have long articles or posts outperform sites with shorter copy. If you decide to increase the length of the content, make sure all of the new content that you add is extremely relevant and useful.
Optimize The Site For Easy Keywords
Using Google Search Console, you can find detailed information about which pages are getting traffic from various keywords. You can also see whether or not those specific pages have already been optimized for those keywords.
The easiest way to understand this concept is by taking a look at an example. Imagine that you have a page on your site that is centered around the keyword “best bike tires”. When viewing the analytics, you notice that traffic is already coming to that page for the search query “best bike tires for trail riding “. Based on this information, you can optimize the page for that keyword phrase, as well. This will usually result in a quick increase in traffic for that particular keyword.
Optimize Your Anchor Text
Using clear, highly-targeted keywords in your anchor text makes it easier for both users and search engines to understand your content. Just be careful not to go overboard. You don’t want the search engines to think that you are engaging in keyword stuffing.
Consider Whether You Could Benefit From A Secure Connection
If your website collects information about your users like their names, home addresses, email addresses, or credit card details, you should be using a secure connection.
Switching to HTTPS instead of HTTP shows Google that you are serious about protecting the data of your users. This can give them a more favorable view of your website, leading to a higher ranking in the search results.
Take Advantage Of Rich Snippets
If you want to increase your CTR and make your site easier to find in the search results, rich snippets can help. Adding these elements to your content can also increase engagement while at the same time reducing your overall bounce rate. This can have a major impact on how well your site performs in the search results. Try using OnCrawl to evaluate the structured data distribution for your site.
Make Your Site Faster
One of the biggest factors that search engines like Google take into account when ranking sites is how quickly they load. Evaluate your site using the PageSpeed Insights tool from Google to find out how well it is currently performing.
Based on the results of the test, Google will make suggestions on how to help your site load faster. Even a small boost in speed can make a big difference in the overall experience that users have on your site. Faster loading times usually translate into a lower bounce rate, which can help your site rank better.
Create An XML Sitemap
XML sitemaps act as roadmaps for your website, showing exactly where all of your pages are located and when they were last updated. This makes it easy for bots to crawl your site. Site maps are particularly important for websites that don’t have intuitive structures or that have dynamically created pages. They also can benefit websites that are brand-new or that have a large amount of older content that has been archived.
Using a sitemap makes it easy for Google to locate all of the content on the site, ensuring that it gets crawled. If you use WordPress, try using the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. You can create a sitemap with just a click of your mouse. Alternatively, you can also look into using a comprehensive SEO plugin like Yoast to not only generate a site map but also to optimize other parts of the site.
Optimize Your Site For Mobile Traffic
Over half of all of the traffic on the Internet comes from mobile users. Unfortunately, most people working in the world of digital marketing use laptops or desktop computers to access the Internet. If you don’t regularly access your site using a mobile device, there may be performance issues that you are unaware of.
Take a look at your website analytics. If most of your traffic comes from mobile users, you should optimize your site for mobile traffic rather than for desktop users. To find out how well your mobile site currently functions, try only accessing it through mobile devices for at least an entire day. Have any other staff members who work on the site do the same. This simple experiment can help you discover major usability issues that need to be addressed. Changing portions of your site so that they do a better job of catering to mobile users can make a big difference in the overall experience of your visitors.
Use Google Analytics To Set Goals
Without setting goals in Google Analytics, how can you tell whether or not your efforts are paying off?
Establishing values for your goals in Google Analytics helps you create reports that provide truly useful information. When you are logged into the administration section, visit Goals. Add a new goal by clicking on “+ Goal”. From there, you just need to set your target values under each type of goal.
For example, if you set a goal of obtaining five additional leads over the course of a month, the information reported by Google Analytics will relate specifically to your goal, helping you understand whether or not you are on track.
If you don’t hit your goals, the data that is provided can make it easier to see where things are going wrong. By analyzing the data, you can often make changes to your website or your content to provide users with a better all-around experience.
Keeping your goals current makes it easier to see exactly how much value you are getting from each lead, impression, download, or click that you get on your site.
Get Active With Charities In Your Community
Do you love the idea of giving back to your local community during the holidays? If so, you will definitely appreciate this tip. Sponsoring charity events or activities in your community can not only help your website from an SEO standpoint but it also can give your customers a positive impression of your company.
Research charity events in your region. Find one that is related to your business that you can sponsor. Typically, if you sponsor a charity event, the nonprofit website will link to your website. This can provide an extra SEO boost, which can be extremely beneficial during the holiday season.
Ideally, you should look for a charity that is closely related to your industry or that involves something that your target market values. For instance, if your company sells products that cater to pets, sponsoring an event for a local animal shelter is a great option. Alternatively, if your products are designed for busy mothers, try focusing on charities that help children. Here are some more ideas here.
Use Mentions To Increase Incoming Links
When deciding how to list websites in the search results, Google uses incoming links as one of the top ranking factors. That is why they should be one of the primary focuses of any well-developed SEO strategy.
Building links isn’t something that happens overnight. However, you can speed up the process by taking advantage of mentions that already exist. Here’s how:
Find and repair links that are broken. Check for crawl errors using Google’s Webmaster Tools. More specifically, look at the section titled Missing URLs. This displays URLs that people tried to visit on your site that no longer exist. Along with this information, you can see where the links to these pages are coming from. You can correct the problem right away by using a 301 redirect to send any incoming traffic to an alternate page.
Search for mentions of your brand. Use Google Alerts to get notified whenever anyone mentions your company online. Check out each mention to see whether or not the webmaster linked to your site. If not, contact them to ask them if they can add a link along with the mention.
Tap Into The Power Of Review Sites & Local/Industry Directories
When it comes to review sites, the three most important sites in terms of helping your website rank better are Yelp, Facebook, and Google. Keep in mind, however, that your target audience may frequent other review sites. Splitting your focus between SEO-friendly review sites and other review sites can help you reach both your users and the search engines.
Don’t forget about directory sites, as well. Adding current information about your company to local or industry directories can make it easier for users to find you. As an added bonus, you don’t have to worry about beating out those directories in the search results since all of your content is up-to-date.
Evaluate Your Performance
A week after making all of these changes, see how you are doing. Check the “Performance” area in Google Search Console. Sort the pages by the number of impressions that they received to see which 10 pages on your site had the best results. Compare this list to the list from seven days ago to see if anything has changed.
To do this, choose “Compare” under the “Date” section that is located over the graph. From there, there should be an option that allows you to compare the past seven days to the seven-day period before it. If you want a clearer picture of what is happening, try exporting the data as a spreadsheet. Alternatively, you can switch the graph to only show a single metric at a time. View the “difference” column to see whether or not your site’s position changed for specific queries. You can also examine your click-through rate if you are trying to get more clicks.
