If you are looking to build a successful website, one of the key elements you need to consider is SEO. Hopefully, we’ve reached a stage where it’s no longer considered some sort of spammy witchcraft tactic that is incomprehensible to anyone but its initiates. Most businesses now understand that it’s just another part of website design.
Whether you’re running a blog or an e-commerce store, here are some of the more vital SEO tactics to utilize when building your website.
Create Clever URLs
A page’s URL is essentially its address. You want to make it clear both to visitors and to search engines what it’s home to.
Using your main keywords in the URL is a good practice. So is removing any superfluous words, refraining from using dates and numbers, and keeping it reasonably short.
When it comes to the website’s architecture, consider how far you want a page to be from the domain, whether or not you need categories and subcategories, and how they might impact URL length.
Create a Sitemap
Having an XML sitemap is also very important, as it tells search engines more about your pages, helps you denote which pages are the most important ones, and overall just makes it easier to categorize and rank them.
If you’re unsure how best to create one, even with the help of a tutorial, ask for help. Messing this bit up can cause some proper harm.
Accommodate All Screens and Browsers
Your website needs to be easy to access from any device, browser, screen size, and operating system, in any screen orientation. And this does not just mean making your pages mobile-friendly or responsive, but actually going in to tweak the finer details.
Items like charts and graphs, videos, and images may end up not being optimized at all for certain screen sizes when you initially upload them, for example. Always double-check what your theme, hosting, and CRM are doing to your pages and if they truly load well for everyone.
Build Light Pages
A lot of modern SEO relies heavily on UX, and a pleasant UX often comes down to how “light” a page is, in every sense of that word.
Does the page load fast? Is it easy to navigate? Is it intuitive? Does it have a logical hierarchy and is it easy to understand? You need to consider every element you place on your page carefully, and how it plays into the overarching goal you have set for that page.
Sometimes it’s easiest to use a landing page builder. It will offer templates and ready-to-use elements, so you don’t have to come up with a unique design from scratch.
Add Internal Links
Internal links help pass on-page value, and they also help your visitors navigate the website better. Make sure every page is linked to at least one other. You don’t want to have any orphan pages – this is bad for SEO for a number of reasons.
When adding internal links, use straightforward anchor text, and ensure there is some sort of logic present. You don’t want to randomly throw links around. Instead, come up with a link map that drives traffic and interest from one page to the next.
Don’t Forget about the Meta Elements
Adding a good meta description instead of letting the first sentence of the page show up can help you optimize the page a lot better. For one, you can use your keyword again organically, and you can try to attract more visitors with a clever description.
Use H-tags, title tags, and ALT tags. Also, ensure that the backend and invisible parts of the page are SEO-friendly. It will help crawlers out, and you’ll be easier to rank.
Choose the Right Keywords
When designing a page, make sure you have selected the appropriate keywords for it. Keyword stuffing is dead and gone, but optimizing pages for keywords is alive and well. This means understanding searcher intent, what an audience wants to learn and see, and then doing your best to provide the best possible answer to the query.
Consider whether a search is informational or has purchasing intent, what else is available for the given keyword, and how you can make your page respond better to the search at hand.
Final Thoughts
With these tips, your website will be much more SEO-friendly. And that means you’ll be able to attract the kind of attention you were hoping for.