SEO Best Practice: 8 Tips to Make SEO Easier for You
The holy grail of traffic to your website is search traffic. That traffic that you get when people click on your organic search result. Yea, that FREE click. It’s what we all want to achieve for our businesses right? To rank for our main keywords in the top 1 to 3 positions, and get heaps of traffic to our websites that convert into paying customers (as opposed to having to pay for advertising right).
And by now you probably know that the way to get into those top search spots is through SEO (search engine optimisation). But, how does SEO work and how do you actually do it? Let’s dive in, shall we?
How SEO Drives Organic Traffic
SEO is the process of helping a website achieve more organic traffic. In order to get organic traffic, your website needs to:
Have content
Get crawled and indexed by Google
Be visible in the search results so people can click on your page
That’s a very simplistic version, but it’s a good summary of how organic traffic works. Today, I want to focus on step #3, as this is really where your SEO strategy comes in. To be visible, you need to find a way to outrank the websites that are already ranking on search engines. And to do that? Well, that’s where SEO best practice comes in.
SEO Best Practice
According to Google, SEO best practices are tasks that will make it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and understand your content. SEO can feel very overwhelming and daunting, but by breaking it down into 8 easy-to-achieve tips, you can easily incorporate SEO best practices into your ongoing marketing activities.
#1. Align Your Content with Search Intent
SEO isn’t just about the keywords that people are searching. It’s also about the intent behind that search. The purpose behind their query. Understanding and satisfying search intent is Google’s number one priority - it’s how they make their customers happy. For example, someone searching “how to make Anzac biscuits” isn’t looking buy ready-made biscuits, but they are wanting to find a recipe and to learn how to make them themselves. That’s intent, and Google will match the top search results based on their understanding of that intent. So if you want your web pages to show up in search results, your content needs to also match intent.
There are 4 common types of search intent:
Informational - when the user is looking for specific information
Navigational - when the searcher is looking for a specific website or app
Commercial - when the user is looking for a specific product but hasn’t made the final decision yet
Transactional - when the searcher has already made a decision to buy a specific product or service
You need to think about your audience and what stage they may be at in their purchase journey - are they still searching for information (then maybe an informational blog post is what they are after), or are they looking for something specific to buy (then they will want to see your product or service pages)?
#2. Write Compelling Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Page titles and meta descriptions are two of the most important on-site SEO factors you can influence. Title tags are the clickable headlines that appear in search results, and they are critical to giving searchers a quick insight into the content of a result and why it might be relevant to their search query. So, they’re kind of important hey?
Some best practices when it comes to writing title tags are:
Keep it to 50 - 60 characters
Include your target keywords at the beginning of the title, or as close to it as possible
Write a title that matches search intent
Give each page a unique page title
Avoid keyword stuffing
Keep it descriptive, but concise
Meta descriptions are the brief summary of a page in the search results page, displayed below the title tag. They don’t directly impact search rankings, but they can influence click-through rates.
Best practices for writing meta descriptions include:
Write unique meta descriptions for each page
Use action-oriented copy
Include your target keywords
Match search intent
Provide an accurate summary of the page content
Keep it to 155 - 160 characters (Google truncates descriptions that are longer)
“A meta description tag should generally inform and interest users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about. They are like a pitch that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for.”
#3. Optimise Your Images for Page Speed
Images are crucial to your user experience, and you’ve probably put in a lot of time and effort in choosing the right images for the right pages. But, you should also make sure you spend time optimising those images, to ensure they don’t slow your site down (and to boost other SEO factors).
Site speed is an important ranking factor, and images are often the biggest culprit when it comes to pages that are slow to load. The first thing to do is to make sure you are picking the best file format for your images. The most commonly used formats on websites are JPEG and PNG. Both of these use different compression techniques, which is why the file sizes between them can be quite different. I would recommend using PNG format for your website images.
The next thing to do is compress your images before uploading them to your website. There are lots of free tools that you can use to do this, like TinyPNG and ImageCompressor. My last tip is to include alt text for all of your images. Adding alt text to your images helps improve web accessibility, and helps browsers better understand the images on your site. Alt text should be useful and information-rich content that uses your keywords and describes what the image is portraying.
#4. Build an Internal Linking Structure
An internal link is a link from one page of your website to another. They’re important because they establish an information heirarchy of your website, and they help Google better understand the content on your pages. When they are used in the right way, they can boost your organic rankings. Best practice is to add internal links from top-ranking pages on your site to pages that need a boost (it’s like you’re sharing the SEO love from one page to another).
#5. Improve Your User Experience
User experience - “the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use” - is a key factor when it comes to your search rankings. Here are a few SEO tips that will ensure your users have a good experience when they visit your website:
Your website loads quickly
You use subheadings (H1, H2, H3) to make your copy more accessible to readers (and help Google better understand it)
Your content is visually appealing - using relevant images, videos and screenshots to bring your text to life
You don’t overuse pop-ups - these aren’t bad from an SEO perspective, but many people find them annoying, so use them sparingly
You have lots of white space - don’t be afraid to use white space in your website design, it improves legibility and can grab attention by making your branding stand out
Your site is mobile-friendly - this is so important to a good user experience!
#6. Make Your URLs SEO-Friendly
URL structure is actually really important for SEO, because it gives both users and search engines a good idea of what the page is all about. A good URL is simple and constructed logically. It should be intelligible to humans, using words rather than numbers and other characters. Try to include your keywords in your URL, and use categories where necessary. For example www.yourwebsite.com.au/blog > www.yourwebsite.com.au/blog/blog-post. In this example, /blog is the category, which will help users and search engines navigate your site.
#7. Earn Authoritative Backlinks
A backlink is when another website links to your website. It’s important to have good quality websites linking back to your site - it’s all about quality rather than quantity. Google recognises backlinks as like a thumbs up for your site, a vote of confidence that your website is worth linking to. The best way to get backlinks is to ask. Research industry websites that would expose you to a new audience and reach out to them. Build a relationship with them and see if there is a mutually beneficial way to help each other, or send them a link to a great piece of content you’ve got on your website and let them know you think their audience might find it useful, so would they consider linking to it from their website. Behind a website is another person just like you, so don’t be afraid to tackle these “technical” aspects of SEO with a human touch.
#8. Create Useful & Valuable Content
Underlying tips 1 through 7 is the need for good quality content that adds value for your readers. Your content should always seek to answer the user’s search query, it should be well-researches and match user intent. Tick those three things off, include well-placed keywords and visual elements, and your content will be shareworthy, link worthy and SEO worthy.
Once you have mastered these best practices, your website should be in a good position to start ranking well in search engines. But, keep in mind that SEO is a long-term game, not a once-off activity. For every new piece of content you create, you should go through these tips again. And make sure you’re also staying up to speed with new SEO developments, trends and techniques so that you can stay ahead of the game.
