Search engine rankings are based off of complex algorithms, but basic search engine optimization can be accomplished with just a few simple steps! Read on to discover what simple things you can do to start driving thousands of visitors to your website.
Simplify your overall website architecture and include a site map on your website. Search engines send what they call ‘spiders’ to analyze your web pages and determine the proper rankings for your pages. This map acts as a legend for the spiders, so that they can easily understand your website’s architecture, helping guarantee more of your site pages are analyzed and ranked. While these spiders are super smart, without a site map they can get confused by a convoluted website. This can easily lead to missed web pages and even a lowering of your overall ranking score!
If your website’s architecture is all over the place, like home extensions built without pre-planning, you need to simplify as soon as possible. If you are about to build a site, take time pre-planning your site’s layout and architecture. This will be a big benefit to keep new pages and layouts from creeping into your website.
Know your target audience and create content relevant to them. While the simple creation of relevant content may not increase your search engine page rankings, the amount of times the post is shared or linked back to certainly does. The more evidence that your post is considered quality, the more likely search engines will rank your page higher. The opposite is true, too. If you write content that no one is sharing, then that content will suffer in the search engine rankings. So spend time to learn what type of content your target audience responds to and deliver it to them!
Learn how keywords work, define the best ones for your content, and build them into your copy. Search engine spiders look to your content for clues on what your article is about. You can help them by choosing one or two keywords or phrases that are the essence of your page’s content, then layering those words within your page title and copy itself.
Don’t go crazy with the layering. You don’t need the keywords in every sentence. As a guideline, stick to around 2% of your total word count as keywords.
Create engaging, unique content. As was mentioned earlier, content that is targeted is very powerful, and just as important as developing content that is unique and engaging. Search engines and their spiders are getting smarter all the time. The algorithms used for page rankings also change quite often, so your best option for continued success is to create content that people love.
Especially today with Google’s personalized search which favors pages that have been favorited (+1′d) by a person’s social circle. These search results are postioned before the normal rankings, making it very important that your content is loved and shared by others.
Following these simple steps can really impact your site visitation, as your pages will begin to appear higher and higher in the search rankings! There are many more SEO steps out there, so keep learning. Your website and your business will benefit from it!
