Social media has become very important for being found on the internet, but when something doesn’t fall into a person’s lap, they turn to a search engine to find it.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fancy way of saying “what you can do to help search engines index your website so that people can find you.” If you want your website to be like a reference book for your target audience, then you need to look at each page of your website and help search engines know what’s relevant on it.
A keyword is a word or short phrase that your target market will put into a search engine to find services like yours or information that you specialize in. So, for example, my keywords are “professional speaking services” “paid to speak” “get booked as a keynote” and so on.
Implementing some simple SEO strategies on your website is very important if you want to get found in search engines. It’s also like wine and cheese, your search engine rankings get better with age: it’s best to make these changes to your website as soon as possible.
To start, take one page of your website at a time and go over these 6 criteria with it:
- Make sure your page is relevant to the keywords you pick: make the content actually relevant to the reader. What good is driving traffic to a substandard or confusing web page that doesn’t make you look good?
- Each page of your website should have 3-4 keywords, one of which is your primary keyword for that page. Mix it up, find new angles on the same topic, change how you combine the keywords. Use the keywords to fuel your blog topics, answer questions on the topic. Use topic synonyms from time to time. Create articles and pages that demystify terminology in your area of expertise. Make yourself an obvious topic expert.
- Your focus keyword should appear in the main page title and in 1-2 more subheadings on the page. Titles and subtitles around 6-7 words are good, and each title needs to be an accurate description of the paragraphs that follow. Try asking a question, otherwise it’s back to all the basics you learned about writing Essays except now you create subheaders for each topic in your essay.
- Your other keywords for the page can appear in the title, if you can keep the title real and natural without forcing the issue. However, your other keywords for the page must appear in the subheadings and be discussed in the text.
- When discussing the topic, you do not have to continue to use the keyword phrase, you must make the page relevant to the keyword topic, use synonyms, vary the phrasing. Don’t force the use of your keyword terms — you can be penalized for “keyword loading” your pages.
- The page or article should be long enough to cover the topic well, and be of actual value to the reader. Nothing makes you look better than caring about your reader. Figure between 300-1200 words. If you have a longer topic, break it down into several pages or articles, and add links between them.
Good content-based SEO is about intentional content, but also about keeping a tight focus on what is actually relevant to your reader. You can drive a million visits to your website, but the quality of your content, and how clearly you answer your visitor’s questions will determine whether or not they stay on your website, clicking around — or pick up the phone or fill in your email form.
If you’ve already worked on having great customer-focused content, and you want to take your SEO to the next level, and you’re not afraid of digging behind a webpage send me an email to info @CharliJane.com and I will send you the advanced SEO tips.
Otherwise, if you’re ready to step up your SEO game, consider hiring an SEO expert, or hire someone on Fiverr.com for assistance with the technical aspects of SEO.
Either way, make sure you get some more strategies in place to give your website a rocket boost into relevance.
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