Search engine optimization plays a significant role when it comes down to the ranking of your webpages. It is the deciding factor of people seeing your pages, or they do not. As our textbook stated, many factors come into play with SEO, such as URLs, title tags, header tags, main content, and much more!
That’s a lot to think about when creating webpages that will rank high in multiple search queries. A great place to start is to create a keyword bank for your website or webpage. This includes all the possible words and search phrases people would put into google to hopefully find your page. A great example of keywords is for my current job; we are a nanny company offering different services. A high keyword phrase for us is “nannies in Lake Tahoe.” This not only includes a keyword nanny, but it also includes a keyword associated with a particular location, which will have a huge benefit.
When it comes to adding your keywords into your content, you want to make sure it flows right. Google is continuously improving its algorithm to allow it to spot keyword stuffing. You want your keywords to play a significant role in the content of your page, but you still want it to read naturally. A good rule of thumb is to have 3-5% of the content on the page keywords or phrases.
Another great way to increase your site ranks is to include a lot of inbound and outbound links. This would include people linking to your website from theirs or you linking other people’s websites within your content. We utilize this at work by including guest contribution blogs. This not only helps with rank, but it creates a great relationship with other websites, which will drive traffic to each other’s websites.
One thing that can be overlooked when it comes to ranking is the name of your images on your webpage. Google is getting better at reading images, but for the most part, it goes off the alt text and name of the file. That being said, it is increasingly more critical to have your files named appropriately, including a keyword or phrase.
When you are creating a new webpage, include don your website make sure to check your URLs . These are very important for ranking. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that you must separate the words with dashes (-). This makes it easier for Google’s bots to read the page. If you do not separate the words, it will have trouble reading your pages, and therefore, your page will be ranked lower than others that include dashes. Another rule of thumb while creating custom URLs is to use all lowercase letters. If someone is directly searching for your webpage in a browser, it is easy for them to mess up the URL if it includes capital and lowercase letters; simple is better.
These are only a few recommendations when it comes to improving the ranking of your webpages. There are endless tricks you can do to utilize SEO better. There are countless resources online, as well! A great resource that has helped me throughout my job as a social media intern is The Beginner’s Guide to SEO write by Moz a link to their guide can be found here: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
