seo tricks

Did you know that 81% of shoppers conduct online research before making big purchases (Source: Hubspot)? With over 100 billion searches taking place monthly on Google, optimizing your website for SEO is vital to getting your brand in front of your desired audience.  Just be sure to boost SEO efforts to get great results.

You see, more consumers are leveraging search today than ever before and it’s critical that you position your business to “show up” when your market is looking for you!  Adding sound SEO practices bolsters your ranking on Google and Bing, giving you more opportunities for brand exposure, lead generation, and new sales.

Using proper keyword techniques is only part of the battle. Factors like user experience and website speed, for example, are also key ingredients to getting noticed by search engines.

The good news is there are quick tactics you can execute now to begin improving your site’s visibility. Simply taking the following action steps today will better your positioning tomorrow.

#1 Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Ready

Hubspot also points out that more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the U.S. and Japan. Because of this surge in mobile search, Google is placing a huge emphasis on websites that are mobile-ready, favoring these sites in search…and penalizing those that are not.

Give your website a place in mobile search by ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. Take the Google test to discover if your site appeals to mobile users. If it doesn’t, fulfill the steps necessary so you don’t miss your place in search. You want to create the perfect website experience ideally.

#2 Add Outbound Links

Many studies reveal that using authoritative outbound links within your content positively affects SEO, making your content more credible and adding to user-experience.

It enriches your brand's message and provides visitors with reputable sources that offer value. Finally, it shows that you’re able to connect with other influencer’s in your industry, showing that you stay abreast in niche-related news.

Therefore, build your credibility by including outbound links in your content. Don’t forget to add 2-3 of your own internal links to boost your success.

seo tricks

#3 Optimize Your Images

Visuals enhance your content, making it more appealing to the eye. In fact, content with relevant images receive 94% more views than content without them. Including images keeps visitors on your pages longer and improves engagement, both having an incredible effect on your ranking.

The disadvantage, however, to including images is that they tend to bog down page load speeds because of their large sizing. This impacts speed (more on this later) which can cause visitors to leave your site (not good for SEO).

Here’s how you can quickly optimize your images to alleviate slow speeds and get them noticed in search:

Optimize your images prior to uploading them on your site by either choosing to “save them for web” when using an image editing tool or install a plugin like WP Smush.it (if you have WordPress) that optimizes JPEG images.

seo tricks

#4 Interactive Content is the Future!

Another tactic to improving website experience is by having more interactive content that keeps your viewers actively engaged in your message. Tools like calculators, infographics, videos, polls and surveys are extremely useful assets to making your content memorable and valuable, giving you a slight edge above the other blogs.

Embed more interactive content on your website and blog posts. Answers from polls and surveys can serve as golden nuggets for market research, giving you more ammo on how you can improve your content, products and services!

seo tricks

#5 Boost Page Load Speeds

Did you know a business loses roughly 25% of its online visitors if its site takes over 4 seconds to load (Source: Kissmetrics)? The amount of time it takes for your website content to load greatly impacts results…for better or worse.

In a digital age where speed is key, if visitors have to wait for your contents to appear, your dwell time (how long people spend on your site) will suffer, fewer readers will linger around to engage in the other pages on your site, and you’ll experience an increased bounce rate.

Easily boost your page load speeds by doing the following:

  • Using a caching plugin
  • Making sure the code is clean and streamlined
  • Optimizing image sizes as mentioned
  • Reducing the number of plugins
  • Minimizing redirects.

seo tricks

 #6 Move Your Website to HTTPS

The "S" in the HTTPS stands for security, meaning you’ve taken the proper steps to safeguard your website. Adding this feature gives you a slight advantage in search. You see, Google announced they were giving a boost in ranking to websites that have the URL that leads with HTTPS (https://example.com).

Since every bit helps, follow this how-to guide in moving your website from HTTP to HTTPS to secure your site in 2018!

Conclusion

Utilize this simple checklist to boost your SEO ranking and improve website experience so readers remain on your site longer. As you do, you’ll experience an increase in views, giving you more brand exposure and opportunities to achieve your desired business goals.

Your success is our thing! We can help better your content for organic rankings to drive more new visitors to your website and improve your lead building and bottom-line. Reach out to us here and let’s chat! We are an expert SEO company that can help!