5 Quick Tips to Improve your Website's SEO Ranking
For those of us (I include myself in this sentiment) who are not professional website or social media designers, it can be very easy to be intimidated by terms like "SEO Ranking." Many small nonprofits feel tempted to either 1) ignore SEO completely or 2) think they have to outsource this task to someone else.
But taking small steps to improve your website's SEO or Search Engine Optimization ranking does not have to be a complicated process. You may be surprised – as I was – that a handful of small, straightforward tasks can do much to make sure more people find your website via an online search.
Here are the top 5 steps you can take to improve your website's SEO Ranking.
Identify Keywords
Fair warning: this can be the most time-consuming of the five tips listed here, but it's easily the number one step you can take to increase your online visibility.
Keywords are the words typed into a search engine that direct visitors to your website. SEO optimization aims to have your web page be near the top of the list of search results if and when someone does an online search for your targeted keywords. Being strategic about where you feature these keywords on your website can help you appear closer to the top of that list. More about that later…
But first, you need to decide upon your keywords! Try to generate a list of 10-15 words to start. (A few more or less is OK, too!)
Your keywords have to fit into a couple of categories:
You want them to be popular search terms
You don't want lots of other websites or organizations using these same keywords
And, of course, you also want your keywords to be relevant to the work you do.
How do you know if you have an optimal list of keywords? One way to measure is through a sort of 'trial-and-error' approach. Feature your current list of words, and track your website metrics for a couple of weeks or a month to see if traffic has improved. Not happy with your results? Try a different set of keywords, and repeat, until you start to see positive trends in your metrics. This, of course, is a long process, but one the yields accurate results!
Some online, free, and subscription-based SEO tools can help you generate a list of potential keywords; many of the subscription-based tools also offer a free trial version to get started. These tools can help you 'predict' what keywords will help you improve your SEO ranking faster – but you will still need to monitor changes over time to see if your keywords are really optimizing your ranking in search engine results.
Another bonus to these SEO optimization tools is that they also generate other potential keywords related to the word you searched. This can be a big help as you try to come up with your list of targeted keywords!
Once you have your list, make sure these keywords show up on your website in prominent places, such as titles and subheadings … which brings us to tip #2!
Optimize Page Titles
A great place to feature your optimized keywords is your page titles. Remember that your page title is what shows up on a search-engine generated list of keyword search results. They also show up in the open tab' area of a website browser. Therefore you want your page titles to be specific, relevant, and ideally between 40 and 60 characters in length. Consider using a straightforward formula such as
Page Title | Keyword | Company Name
for uniformity on each page of your website.
Include Subheadings
Subheadings are very important for SEO optimization. Keep in mind that most visitors on a webpage don't necessarily read everything on your page word for word but skim as they scroll through, looking for the information relevant to their keyword search. Therefore having subheadings throughout your page – especially having subheadings that again incorporate your featured keywords – makes your webpage much more 'visitor friendly' and subsequently improves your SEO ranking.
Don't Skip the Meta Descriptions
Meta Descriptions are the short paragraph or description of the webpage that shows up on the search results list, directly underneath the webpage title. This paragraph might be the very first impression someone has of your website, and therefore your organization, so these are a big deal!
I will admit that before I started learning more about website SEO, I thought the search engine automatically generated these paragraphs. And if you don't write your own Meta Descriptions – they are. But these 'automatically-generated' meta descriptions are often unclear and may not be the best representation of what is on your webpage.
When you write a Meta Description, aim to keep it between 140-160 characters, and include keywords here, too!
Use Links to Keep Visitors Engaged
You want visitors to your website to stay on your website as long as possible. You don't want them to scroll by simply, but instead, you want to grab their attention and spend some time getting to know your organization better. One great way to do this is to make it easy for visitors to jump around to different pages on your website. Provide links on your page that are easy to click and follow, so visitors can easily find more information on related topics of interest. This helps increase the average amount of time visitors spend on your website, increasing your "authority" and improving your SEO ranking.
*Bonus tip – set up your links, so the link opens the page on a new tab and doesn't close the current page. This again helps that the average amount of time per visit increase.
SEO Optimization shouldn't have to be intimidating, and it can be something anyone can do. Just take it one step at a time. Also, keep in mind that it's a process that yields results over time. After following these tips, or making any website changes, check on your website performance metrics and look for changing trends over the next couple of weeks or month.
If you'd like more help optimizing your SEO ranking, contact Spark Group today for a free 30-min chat!
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