SEO For Beginners: How To Nail Your New Website’s Search Engine Status
With millions of websites out there on the World Wide Web, the competition on Google is fierce in nearly every field imaginable. Truth is, if you want people to find your stunning website, you’re going to have to invest some time in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
But no need to stress. SEO is just a fancy term that refers to the art of getting your site to show up high in search results. And luckily, ranking well in search engine results is not as hard as finding Atlantis – you can knock out the basics in almost no time at all. To get a head start on your competitors, you’ll want to optimize your website from the get-go and invest a few hours a month in its upkeep.
Here are 6 ways to nail your new website’s SEO right out of the gate.
1. Choose & use keywords
Google and other search engines rank your website based on keywords, so you want to do everything you can to associate your site with the words your customers are looking for. Make a list of terms that members of your target market would search for in Google. Then, include these keywords as often as possible in your text, headings and as alt text for your images.
2. Find the right domain name
Ready for your website to go live and connect it to a custom domain? Awesome! Since your domain is one of the very first things that Google will look at to rank your site, you’ll want to keep SEO in mind when considering ideas for your website’s URL address – you can even customize it with a cool domain suffix. An ideal domain will include your business name and a main keyword relevant to what you do.
3. Give each page a unique title & description
After scanning your domain name, search engines look at your site’s titles and descriptions. These are short texts about each page on your site. When you write them, be sure to incorporate your keywords as much as possible.
Potential site visitors also use your titles and descriptions to determine if your site offers what they’re looking for. Where? Mouse over any tab on a browser and you will see the page title for that webpage. The description is the brief text found in Google search results under each link to a website. Try to lure visitors straight to your site with well-written, accurate descriptions.
4. Submit your site map
When you create a new website, it helps to let search engines like Google and Bing know about it right away. Sure, their smart robots will find you eventually, but why not get a head start? In a click, you can get your ranking underway by telling these search engines to scan and index your site. Use this link to submit your site to Google and this link to submit your site to Bing.
5. Put social media to work for you
There are countless advantages to creating accounts on popular social media channels. You can bring in new customers and loyal fans through Facebook, Twitter, Instragram and the like. But it’s not just people who are tirelessly checking their newsfeeds – search engines take note of active social media profiles. In fact, a website may rank higher when it’s associated with an active account on a social network. So open up a profile, link to it on your website, connect with your customers and post [relevant content] as often as possible.
6. Use geography to your advantage
If you run a brick and mortar shop, you want to attract customers in your area. To do so, you’ll want to rank particularly well on searches performed in your geographic location. To help search engines associate your website with your locale, include your address and make sure you phone number appears on every page of your website. Then, submit your website and business details to popular online listings sites like Yellow Pages, Google+, Merchant’s Circle, Yelp and more. These online directories rank well on search engines and can bring in new customers who might never have found your website.
