Driving potential customers to your website is critical to growing your business. In today’s digital age, search engines such as Google and Bing are often the first stop for potential customers. Improving your website with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can improve your position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), such as the Google results page, and, in turn, drive more interested consumers to your website. In fact, according to Wordstream, the first page of Google drives 71% of web traffic—some sources say the first page drives up to 92% of traffic.
Below we list out SEO tips you can implement for your website to help improve organic search traffic and position your website as a top source of information for customers.
Starting with Keyword Research
Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into search engines, such as Google. They play an important role in a site’s ability to show up on the search engine results page. By identifying the right words and phrases, you can greatly improve your website’s search ranking performance.
Keyword research is a cornerstone of search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. The process of performing good keyword research for SEO involves choosing a topic that you want to target with your content and is focused on a set of targeted keywords that you want your content to rank well for in the search engine results page (SERP).
Keyword research provides insights into the questions, problems, and solutions your target audience is looking for. This analysis will help guide your SEO efforts, helping inform your content and organic search strategies. Learning the right keywords to target with effective keyword research is the first step to successful SEO.
Content Optimization
Once you have selected your target keyword(s) (and secondary keyword(s), if applicable), it’s now time to create unique optimizations to both the meta description and body copy to target these selected keywords.
- <TITLE> Tags: One of the most important on-page SEO elements. <TITLE> tags specify the title of a web page and are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result, and are important for usability and social sharing. The <TITLE> tag is meant to be an accurate and concise description of a page’s content.
- Meta Descriptions: Meta descriptions are extremely important in gaining user click-through from SERPs. These short paragraphs provide an opportunity to “advertise” content to searchers, and searchers decide if the content is relevant and contains the information they’re seeking from their search query. Each page should have its own unique meta description.
In the example below, you’ll see the title tag display on the search engine results page as “James Hardie: House Siding & Backer Board” and the meta description is “James Hardie is the world leader in fiber cement siding…”.
- <H1> Tags: The <H1> tag is the most important header tag on the page. When used properly, <H1> tags can help to improve rankings, as search engines give this tag more weight than other header tags.
- Body Copy: the content of a page (body copy) is what makes it worthy of a search result position. It answers a user’s query and is therefore very important to search engines, as they strive to deliver the best content possible. It is important to incorporate your target keyword throughout the body copy to send a strong signal to search engines.
In the below blog post image, “Fire Resistant Siding Offers…..” is the H1 tag, while the text under the photo is the start of the body copy.
Enhancing Website User Experience
Search engines not only look for relevant content, but they prioritize websites that provide a good user experience (UX). User experience (UX) is a critical aspect of website development that revolves around ensuring your site is user-friendly and offers a seamless interaction for visitors. A poor UX can drive visitors away, leading to high bounce rates, which can negatively impact your website's search engine ranking. To enhance your website's UX and prevent users from leaving prematurely, consider focusing on strategies around visual appeal of the page, easy navigation, and mobile-friendly design.
To enhance UX and improve SEO, it's essential to align your website with the expectations of your visitors: ask yourself what users anticipate when they land on your website. Images such as before & after photos of projects your team has worked on can be a great add to your site.
Enhancing SEO through Image Optimization
Image optimization for SEO is a critical process that revolves around ensuring that images are finely tuned for search engines. There's more to this practice than merely crafting alt tags; it demands a comprehensive approach. Essential steps to optimize images for SEO, all of which are key factors in enhancing a website's search engine performance, include proper file naming, descriptive alt texts and captions, optimal file type, and mobile-friendly images or images correctly sized and formatted to fit on any mobile screen.
Schema Markup
Schema Markup plays a pivotal role in improving the visibility of images on your website. When structured data is applied appropriately to your pages, it assists users in identifying the type of content associated with the images, leading to quicker access to relevant information and the generation of better-targeted traffic to your site.
For your business, having schema markup on the pages where you display your products can help your page stand out in the search engine results page.
By adhering to best practices such as descriptive alt text, proper file naming, image compression, and mobile-friendly formatting, website owners can enhance both user experience and SEO results. Incorporating images into sitemaps further boosts visibility and traffic.
SEO is not a perfect science. The practice involves continuously testing, measuring, and adjusting for peak ranking on the search engine results page. It can take weeks or even months to see results of your hard work with your pages fluctuating in ranking over time. The result of having a strong SEO-optimized website can be tremendously beneficial for your business as more homeowners will see your site when searching for services your business provides. To learn more about SEO best practices or for more details on any of the above topics, we recommend visiting SEO resources such as Conductor, Search Engine Journal, and MOZ.