Who in the world of online business doesn’t think about how to drive more traffic to their site? For an improved amount of visitors to your website, it’ll benefit you to use strategic SEO methods and site management techniques.
The better you implement these techniques, the higher your website’s chance will be to rank high on Google. This is great since it is always best to land on the top half of the first page that appears when a customer searches for related products and services.
This can draw more people to find your service, product, or blog. So to start, what do we mean by SEO and proper site management techniques? Let’s start!
What is SEO?
This acronym stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of improving your website so that it can be better-ranking in search engine result pages, thus driving traffic to your site.
Google uses complex algorithms to rate web page’s elements, content, tags, etc. and from these, it decides the sites that are most related to the user. If you want your website to rank on search engines, Google must like what you provide to your clients and visitors.
There are some functions in WordPress that are meant to help improve your ranking. Functions on this platform can guide the bots via individual categories, pages, and posts, giving the search engine an easy time in finding information about your business.
Site management, as well as SEO, is efficient in helping optimize your website. Site management will ensure no error occurs when a customer is browsing your website.
SEO strategies are the process of experimentation that is directed at growing the organic traffic of your web pages. These methods will help you steadily grow your site’s traffic.
Proven SEO Techniques
Here are some SEO methods and site management tips to apply to your website and keep them on top of their game.
Shorter or Longer Posts?
Among the ranking factors for SEO, content is a significant factor. Content in videos or blog posts attracts potential customers.
Search engine optimization has it that long posts are more beneficial to customers and have more keywords. Neil Patel said that content should be over 2,000 words but at the same time should be of high quality.
Quality content is important as it is what keeps the user’s interest and keeps them wanting to continue reading the posts and even sharing with their friends. So if you want your content to be readable and shareable to potential customers, you ought to make it interesting and captivating.
Longer interesting posts benefit your customers with valuable information, but it also prolongs the dwell time. When people spend more time on your site, it sends signals to Google that your site is quite useful and so the site will automatically rank higher.
Remember to know your target audience and direct your content in the right direction.
Fresh Content
Fresh content is not only good for your readers, but it also lets Google know that your website is active. Though it may not be easy to come up with fresh content continuously, you can luckily reuse some of the already existing posts from your website.
A quick way to update your content is with the posts including a specific year in the title. For example, “Top 10 places to visit in 2019,” this can be easily updated to “Top 10 places to visit in 2020.” Make sure the information is up-to-date while adding new relevant info and then publish it.
Not maintaining your site and forgetting about your past posts can make your business look as though no one is maintaining it. This gives a bad reputation and image to your audience. They want to see that you’re active, involved, and on top of things.
A great example is the Hostinger blog post on the best work from home jobs. Not only they are being active but also providing value to their readers at the right time when everyone had to switch to working from home.
Also, try to communicate with your readers. This builds trust and shows you care, as well as keeping your content relevant.
Don’t forget to check for duplicate text. This can be true duplicates or near-duplicates that are popping up. Use tools like Copyscape to make sure you’re not competing against yourself.
Check Your Images
Don’t forget to optimize your images. This begins with how you save your image name. Make sure the name is relevant to your post and the image.
Next, add alt-text. This will be beneficial if the image is ever broken and not able to load. At least then, with alt-text, the viewer is able to read what the image should be.
Other things to keep an eye on are, correct image sizing, optimizing your images file sizes to improve your pages loading time, and adding images to your XMP sitemap.
Also, remember to run site checks to avoid broken images. Errors, bugs, hacks, etc. can lead to a broken graphic or image on your site. This may lead to loss of sales or a bad reputation.
Use the Right Keywords
Using keywords is essential for SEO. While it is crucial to add relevant keywords to your content, you should also research what your potential customers are using as keywords in their searches.
The keywords you use for your content should always be relevant to the topic. Provide keywords that talk about your services or products.
Keyword tools can assist you in choosing the right keywords for your content. Keep in mind some essential factors such as competition, score, and search volume, to determine the complexity of ranking for specific keywords. Other keyword tools you can use are Google Trends, SEMrush, and Moz.
Try to include long-tail keywords as well. A good tool to use is Google AdWords Keyword Planner. When conducting your keyword research, remember to be strategic. Think about what your potential customers are typing into search bars, and build your content around the right words.
Link Building
External links to your site from other sites are another crucial element of SEO and site management. These links are commonly known as backlinks and can be quite resourceful, but only if you know how to use them. Consider having backlinks to your site from high-quality sites and clients that are relevant to the content on your site.
Backlinks from reputable sites will increase the traffic to your website and help you rank higher. So if your website talks about SEO marketing, then it is a good idea to link to sites that talk about marketing-related content. The logic goes as follows – if other websites (especially reputable ones) are linking to your site for references, that means your page is worthwhile.
Consider high-quality linking as one of the primary SEO techniques as it can enhance your ranking on search engines fast. For this, you can participate in guest posting.
Check for Errors
Website errors are never a fun thing to deal with, however, thanks to the internet there are many ways to quickly solve them. The upkeep of your site is important. It is a great way to prevent errors like broken links, 404 Errors, or others like 502 Errors.
Being on top of your site and checking for errors shows your customers that your company is trustworthy and reputable.
Site errors disrupt the user’s experience, likely allowing them to look elsewhere for products or services. Google also looks down on errors. These mistakes can hurt your ranking.
A good way to check for error pages is to run a site audit. It will check for redirects, duplicate pages, errors and more. Some great site audit tools are, Woorank, Semrush, Moz, and more.
Remember Meta Descriptions
Although it doesn’t influence your rankings directly, it is a bit of an advertisement and is what people see on search engine results pages.
Your meta description should be compelling and encourage the user to click on your link on the SERP. When optimizing your meta description, remember these things.
Be aware of your character limit. Keep your meta title around the average of 55 characters and your description no more than 164.
Keep the description relevant to the page, accurate and concise, short and to the point. Remember its a summary, it should be truthful while advertising the page.
Bottom Line
SEO and site management don’t have to be hard on your part. Follow these simple, but crucial techniques and help your website will rank among the top pages on search engines.
About the Author
Simon Dwight Keller is a digital marketing entrepreneur. He co-founded a digital marketing company PRable and runs his own company – SDK Marketing. Besides his burning passion for SEO, he is interested in ice hockey and traveling.
