Essential First Steps When Optimizing a New Website
Eric Solomon • March 15, 2018
Congratulations on your new website! You’re now one giant step closer to generating leads and conversions digitally. So what’s next? Search engine optimization, or SEO. Once your website goes live, you want to make sure Google and other search engines can easily crawl and index your website content by optimizing for SEO. This is fundamental to building your online presence and bringing traffic to your website. Here are some tips for optimizing your new website for SEO and increasing your online traffic.
Keyword Research
The first thing you need to do is identify and make a list of the keywords you would like your website to rank for. Each page should target specific and relevant keywords. Keyword research and suggestion tools, such as Google Keyword Planner and Keyword Tool.io, can help you determine which keywords are relevant to your business, the amount of search volume they get each month, and how competitive they are. You want to be careful not to optimize a single page for too many keywords, though. This is called keyword stuffing, and not only is it a turn-off to site visitors, but it can also decrease your ranking. You should have several pages on your website, each optimized for a specific keyword you are targeting.
Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are used to tell users and search engines what your website is about. You should have a few of your targeted keywords in your page title and a meta description that gives a brief overview of the page content. You want to keep it concise and to the point. Title tags and meta descriptions that are too long will not easily be read by users on mobile devices and may not be indexed by search engines.
Alt Attributes (Tagging Images)
An alt attribute, also known as alternative text, helps search engines understand what an image means. These tags are used within HTML to describe the appearance of an image and to provide context to search engine crawlers so they can index the image appropriately. Adding alt text also helps visually impaired users who are using a screen reader to understand an image.
Internal Link Building
In order to increase your keyword ranking, you need to show the search engines that the pages of your website all work together as a whole, and linking between pages on your site will do exactly that. For example, when you write a blog post, you can include internal links to other service or product pages. Building internal links is important because it helps Google crawl your website, it enhances your keyword rankings, and it provides your website visitors with further reading options and information.
Schema Markup
Schema markup is code you put on your website to help search engines understand your content and provide the best search results for users. With such large amounts of data and information constantly being indexed on the Internet, your schema markup helps tell search engines what your data means. Don’t worry, you don’t need to learn coding to put schema markup on your website.
The image below shows examples of local businesses that have markup on their event pages, giving users information about venues, event times bands, and so on. For more information about schema markup, visit schema.org.
Ready to start optimizing your website for search engines?
Optimizing your website will undoubtedly help take your business to the next level, but it does require time and effort that not every business owner has. If you’re ready to optimize but are exhausted by the mere idea of adding another series of tasks to your to-do list, give us a call. At Reader Digital Agency, digital marketing is our bread and butter. We specialize in advanced SEO practices designed to grow businesses just like yours. Contact us today at (619) 235-3000 to learn more about our full-service digital marketing agency.
