You need SEO to build organic traffic to your site
Why You Need SEO Traffic
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the method by which you improve or “optimize” your website. The content on your website as well as the content you create off of your website for your ideal audience is also important for SEO purposes.
To do SEO well, you need to know your audience, including geographic, demographic, and psychographic variables, understand your competition, be able to describe the problems you solve for your ideal target audience member and know your value all the while using the terms (keywords) that your audience is likely to use to find your information.
There are two types of SEO: On-Page SEO and Off-page SEO
On-Page Search Engine Optimization
On Page SEO includes anything you do on your page to improve the ability of search engines (and your audience who is using a search engine) to find you. All the following is included in On-Page SEO.
• Title Tags – This is essentially the title of your page. It could be a blog post, a sales page or any page on your website. The title should use the H1 tag to signify to the search engines that this is an important part about the topic of your content.
• Headings & Subheadings – Likewise, headings and subheadings should also use H1, H2, H3 and so forth headers because it indicates the importance of these words in relation with the keywords you want to rank for. It also defines the way the heading or subheading looks to the user and helps break up the white space and text for easier reading.
• URLs – When you are creating titles for any page or blog post on your site, you want to ensure that they include your audience’s keywords and also have the search engine recognize same. For example, if you create a new post entitled: On Page SEO: Tips & Tricks to Getting It Right. The URL should be yoursite.com/onpageseotips. It does not have to be the entire title. You want your page URLs to look good, have keywords, and be short.
• Optimized Images – When you create an image for your website the SEO best practice is to name the image with a keyword in it. As an example, say you are uploading an image of a word cloud for your blog post, for SEO purposes, you will want to name it SEOkeywordcloud.jpg or something relevant to your article as the search engines will combine this information with all others on your page.
• Body Text – The rule of thumb is that the keyword you want to rank for should appear within the first 100 words in the body text in the first paragraph.
• Responsive Design – If you don’t have a website or page that works on all devices, you’re missing out on customers as search engines penalize sites that aren’t responsive.
• Outbound Links – A site with good outbound links to credible sources about the subject you are sharing with your audience, shows that you’re more than likely a site with quality content. You don’t want to go overboard, but linking to valuable sources definitely helps your ranking.
• Internal Linking – A good internal linking policy for your website can increase how much of your site the search engines crawl. Furthermore, it helps your readers stay longer on your site. This is also a good sign to search engines that your content is relevant and high quality.
• Site Speed – Your site needs to load very fast, almost instantly. I’m pretty sure that you do not wait when a site won’t load even if it says “loading please wait”, so optimize your site’s loading speed. The search engines will rank it higher and your readers will enjoy it.
• Keyword Synonyms – You must be careful not to overstuff each page with a particular keyword. For example, if you want your post to rank for a word, it should then be in the title, headers, body text and so forth. Be sure not to exceed two percent density. That’s where keyword synonyms come in handy. Leverage them through your content.
• Social Sharing – Include social sharing icons so your readers can share what they love easily. It allows them to follow you on social media and interact with your posts. Speaking of social, allow comments on your blog posts to attract user-generated content that also help with your ranking.
• Long Form Content – You want to include both short and long form content on your website. Some people may call it epic content, authoritative content, or long form content. Basically, this is content that is very in-depth. It may have started with short blog posts in a series but can be turned into very long content that explains an important aspect of your niche to your audience.
Off-Page SEO
It includes link building and social media marketing. In fact, even TV ads, Radio Ads, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc, can also be considered off-page SEO.
Essentially any traffic generating activities that you do off your website or blog is considered off-page SEO, since the idea is to show the search engines that your site is authoritative with quality content and valued information for your audience.
Doing SEO right helps you get more traffic. Sometimes the traffic comes from pulling them into your site with the right keywords that your audience will use search engines to find, and sometimes it means creating more links to your site via guest posting, directory listings, and social media activities.
Using these best search engine practices will help you get more traffic because you’ll design a site perfect for your niche audience.
Implementing SEO practices is one of the best evergreen sources of traffic that you’ll ever find.
RESOURCES
For On-Page SEO, I highly recommend YOAST SEO plugin for WordPress to make it really easy to rank in search engines. 🙂
Have questions? Get in touch!
Sharing is caring…so do share your own SEO tips in the comments below. 🙂
To your prosperity!
Janice Dugas, Online Visibility Trusted Advisor
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