The first point of entry for any effective branding strategy is letting people know about your company. In the online world, your website will be the first port of call between you and the consumer. Yet, the consumer will likely look at the first website that comes up when they type certain keywords into a search engine. If you want to ensure that your company website is high on search engine rankings, then the following advice may be helpful.
BUILD BACKLINKS THROUGH ENGAGING CONTENT
Building high authority backlinks is one of the best practices for ranking higher in search engines. However, often simply asking for backlinks or collaborations isn't enough and may even border on being a practice which the Google algorithm will eventually frown upon.
Rather than trying to force backlinks, the ideal way to build them is to produce content that people want to share. This can be done by creating entertaining or informative content. Anything that users find engaging and valuable enough to share.
Make Sure All The Important Pages In Your Site Can Be Reached. Internal text links, not just menu navigation, are vital in providing maximum search engine entry points to pages on your site.
FOCUS ON USER EXPERIENCE
Google's top priority is ensuring that when users enter a search term that they get the most efficient and helpful result from that search as possible.
The best thing you can do to ensure that it is your site that appears as that top result is to simply make it the most efficient and useful result.
This can be done in several ways such as making your user interface easy to understand, your site easy to navigate, ensure the information the user searched for is prominently displayed and all-round just making sure your site is easy to use and not more complicated than it needs to be.
The easier your site is to use the more likely it is to rank well.
SEARCH YOUR SITE ON TOP SEARCH ENGINES
It is important to search your site on the top search engines, such as Google, and Yahoo, and see how many links your site has. Search all key terms and see who ranks high.
LIST YOUR SITE IN DIRECTORIES
Directories are the first place a search engine looks, so makes sure your site is on them. There are plenty out there and many tools to help you find them so get looking and get listing!
PICK RELEVANT SEARCH TERMS
When describing your business it is essential to use terms that are clear, concise, and relevant, to ensure that people are searching under those terms.
OPTIMISE YOUR FILES FOR SEARCH
The universal resource locator (URL) address bar located at the top of your browser contain names that search engines place a heavy emphasis on, so make sure you include them.
DON'T STUFF KEYWORDS
It is easy to understand why those new to SEO may make the association keywords = good, so more keywords = better. This was true in the very early days of the Internet, however, Google has since become wise to many of these practices and will avoid ranking pages that are seen to be spamming keywords.
Google understands that users do not want to read pages that are written for robots, therefore they will not show pages that have been reduced to an incomprehensible mess for the sake of adding in a few more keywords.
Make sure you have your keywords in appropriate places such as your heading and then placed appropriately throughout the rest of the page.
MARKETING FUEL:
A few small carefully implemented modifications to your site will ensure maximum search engine fitness. A well-designed website is the locus of your online business.
In order to quickly improve your SEO you can:
Build backlinks through engaging content
Focus on user experience
Search your site on top search engines
List your site in directories
Pick relevant search terms
Optimise your files for search
Avoid stuffing keywords
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About the author: Vincent Bissette is a freelance Brand Strategy and Design Consultant with over 30 years experience of branding and rebranding businesses and organisations, systematically, thoroughly and objectively. He has worked in major Design Consultancies as well as having run his own agency for 25 years, working with SMEs all over the UK to help them modernise their brand, grow their business, attract new customers, penetrate new markets and increase their sales, market share and profit. Throughout that time, there’s not much he hasn't done or many industries he hasn't worked in. He’s a creative, strategic thinker and problem solver with a wealth of experience in diagnosing trouble spots in brands and discovering their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Now based in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, he works throughout the entire UK.
Get in touch with him on Linkedin here
