Improve SEO In 5 Simple Steps

by aschmidt

Improve_SEOSEO or Search Engine Optimization is a cost-effective and highly efficient way you can increase brand awareness, boost sales and expand your target market, but that’s only if you’re doing it right. The good thing is, it’s not difficult to put some SEO best practices in place starting right away. Here’s how you can improve your SEO in five simple steps:

1. Conduct Keyword Research And Then Optimize Your Content

The first and most important step toward improving your SEO is to conduct keyword research – think of suitable and representative keywords or keyphrases that your target customers could possibly use to search for your business in a search engine. These words and phrases either describe your product or ask questions which your product answers. Then, integrate them in your website as part of original, well-written content.

Make sure not to use the same keywords or phrases too many times, though. Not only will it sound unnatural, but it will also have the opposite effect on your SEO efforts, as this is known as “keyword stuffing” and heavily penalized by search engines.

2. Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

The number of people who use their smartphones and tablets to navigate the web increases daily, so if a website is not properly optimized for mobile use, your visitors will find it difficult to access and will, most likely, leave within seconds. Keep them on your site by using a responsive design that adapts to mobile browsers seamlessly or create a pared-down mobile version of your website that’s easy to navigate on a smaller touchscreen.

3. Spend Time Link Building

Link building benefits you on several different levels: not only will it increase website traffic as it draws visitors from other websites to yours, but it will also improve your website ranking, given the fact that Google’s algorithm take into account all the inbound and the outbound links that point to a particular website. Be sure that your site is linked with relevant, high-quality websites, because ties with sketchy websites or spammy content will negatively impact your page rank.

A good idea is to search for reputable article directories to which you can submit high-quality, engaging and eduational articles. Most of these directories allow you to insert up to two internal links to your website within the article body. So you’re building inbound and outbound links!

4. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Social Media

Ultimately search engines are concerned not with how many keywords you have included in your content, but with whether humans will like your content. And a big indicator of whether humans like your content is how much it’s getting shared on social media. Encourage your employees to actively share your content that you post on social media, and don’t forget to make that content valuable to your fanbase to increase the liklihood that they’ll share it, too.

5. Add a Sitemap to Your Website

A sitemap helps cut through the coded clutter that confuses search engines, and helps your visitors navigate and have a better experience on your site. Search engine crawlers analyze and index your site’s pages faster when things are presented in an efficient manner, so XML sitemaps are a great choice for improving SEO.

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