Looking for useful SEO tips you can apply yourself? Then look no further! SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a very important part of your online marketing strategy. It is a long-term strategy, but it delivers sustainable results, getting you higher in Google. In addition, unlike SEA, SEO is a free method to increase your findability.
Here we give you some SEO tips you can use to get started yourself.
1. Submit the website to Google Search Console
If you have not yet registered your website with Google Search Console, this is a good first step to take right away. After all, this tool will give you an awful lot of insights into how the website is currently performing and you can use these insights to optimise and improve your website.
- Add the sitemap to Google Search Console
Typing /sitemap.xml after your website URL will take you to your website's Sitemap. A sitemap helps a search engine's search robot to get to the bottom of the website and index it.
2. SSL certificate
A valid SSL certificate is also very important for the website and for SEO. This indicates that there is a secure connection between the website's server and the internet browser. This is one of the many SEO ranking factors for Google, as a secure website is an important issue.
Want to know if your website has a valid SSL certificate? Then use this tool.
3. Page speed
Page speed is also an important SEO ranking factor. Google wants to show only the best results to users. Does your website take an incredibly long time to load? Then it is not user-friendly. Google will therefore not recommend your website.
With the tool Google PageSpeed Insights you can see the page speed score of your website on mobile and dekstop. This is a score on a scale of 0-100. The tool also indicates what you can do to improve your page speed.
4. Keyword research
Find out which search terms users type into a search engine to look for your product or service. Also discover the search volume per month and the competition for these search terms. Based on keyword research, you can start building your website, clearly map its structure and also optimise the texts for your products, services or categories with these keywords.
Some free tools to do a keyword research are:
- Ubersuggest
- Semrush (paid tool, but a free account allows you to perform a number of searches per day)
- Also Asked
- Keywordtool.io
- Answer The Public
5. SEO-friendly URL
Search engines like a simple URL structure. Therefore, keep your URL as short as possible. We also recommend including the most important keyword in the URL. By including the most important keyword in the URL, you make it easier for search engines to index the website faster and more efficiently. Also, it is often clear to a user what the page is about.
6. Meta data
Metadata are like the signboard of your website. They must be attractive enough for a visitor to click on. If this is not the case, a user will click on your competitor's website. When optimising metadata, pay attention to the following:
- Make sure the title and description are not too long, otherwise it will fall away in the search results
- Incorporate the most important keywords in the metadata
- Incorporate a Call To Action
- Incorporate your Unique Selling Points in the meta data
7. Content
Make sure you write content for the user and think about what they want to read on your website. Above all, do not write content for the search engine. However, it is important to include keywords in the content for a specific page, category or product. What to look out for when writing content:
- Use at least 300 words
- Do not use too many words on a specific page (no more than 2,000)
- Incorporate keywords into the content
- Avoid over optimisation and incorporate keywords approximately every 50 words
8. Heading tags
Heading Tags not only make a text clearer and easier to read, but they also provide information to search engine bots. In fact, a search engine bot scans heading tags better than the content. When you include relevant keywords in them, this also affects the findability of your website.
So Heading Tags are not just about providing information to search engine bots. It also makes for a more structured and better user experience. Large pieces of text are difficult to read on screen and headings make reading easier.
Keep the right structure:
The title of your page or category
<h2> Sub-head </h2>
<h3> Sub-head</h3>
9. Alt-tags
An alt tag is also called an alt text. This is a textual description that you add to an image. With this, you indicate to Google what the image is about. It is advisable to include a keyword here. This is part of search engine optimisation. An alt tag has the following functions, among others:
- It allows Google to assess how relevant the image is to the page on which it is placed. If Google finds the image relevant to the page, your page may rank higher in Google.
- Adding an alt tag allows the image to be shown in Google Images results.
10. Internal links
The importance of external links to your website is often understood, but internal links are also very important.
A good internal link structure helps your website to:
- Search engines understand the structure of your website better and faster
- Get pages to rank higher on the second page of search results
- Provide additional and helpful information to your visitor
- Increase the authority of a specific page
You can incorporate internal links:
- In the text (contextual links)
- In the structure (navigation on the left)
11. Let other websites link to you
When another website links to your website, Google sees this as a recommendation from someone else. The more recommendations you get from other websites, the more important your website is seen by Google. This gives your website a certain authority. A score is therefore attached to this on a scale of 0-100.
The authority score is determined based on the quality of the other website linking to your website and on quantity. However, more value is placed on the quality of the website linking to you.
The anchor texts used to link to your website are also important for the findability of your website. An anchor text is the text behind which a link is placed. To be found better with certain keywords, it is important to use a keyword as anchor text.
12. Don't forget Google My Company
Google My Company also falls under optimising your SEO strategy. It is often used for businesses that operate locally, such as furniture shops, car garages, construction companies and so on. Even if you do not have a visitor site, it is still advisable to set up a Google My Company profile and optimise it. It is your company's online business card, so to speak.
When you set up your Google My Business profile properly, your profile will be shown faster in local search results. These local search results take up a lot of space these days, in search results.
Optimise your Google My Business page by:
- Add complete information (address details, opening hours and phone number)
- Select several categories relevant to your business
- Add the service areas
- Add products and services
- Incorporate important keywords in the company's description
- Add relevant photos
Need advice on SEO optimisation?
The SEO specialists at Alona Marketing will be happy to help you with this. Get in touch via phone number 085-0654633 or send an e-mail to info@alonamarketing.nl.
