SEO Tools and Tips is a blog that covers the best SEO tools and tips on the market. We don’t just talk about how to use the tool, we also talk about how to implement it in your marketing strategy.
We’ll help you find the right tools for your business, so you can focus on what matters most: growing your business.
Table of Contents
Seo Tools And Tips
The advent of internet gave rise to digital marketing. With heavy competition in recent times, staying ahead in the game has become quite difficult.
Brand awareness has become one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. And SEO can greatly help your reach out to larger audiences.
Search engines make life simple and easy. When we need to find some info, our natural instinct now is to conduct a search on Google. This is how a lot of businesses and brands get discovered. But simply creating a website won’t get you indexed by the search engines.
It takes a lot of time and effort to gain visibility in search engines, and to build your traffic from there. Through search engine optimization, you can get organic traffic for your website.
Here are six tips that’ll help you improve your SEO game:
1. Publishing Relevant Content
Just publishing content on a website won’t get you listed by search engines. Content needs to be new, credible, and of good quality. This has a huge impact on your site’s relevance, which would automatically boost its search engine ranking.
Make sure that your website’s keywords are identified and that they are optimized on each page. A good meta description and title tag adds to the quality of the website’s content.
Once you have a website up and running, keep it updated with regular articles and blog posts. Blog posts give search engines more content to crawl through and index. In fact, websites that have blogs have 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links.
A good FAQ section with proper keywords, relevant answers, links, and numbers adds to a website’s quality.
For a search engine, all of these combined are a goldmine of information that it considers relevant for the users.
While this may seem like a moot point, it’s imperative that brands publish content that is relevant to their niche.
Suppose you’re a company that sells apparel for plus-sized women. Your target audience is curvy or plus-sized women. You could partner with an influencer who promotes body positivity and fashion for plus-sized women.
That’s exactly what Tanesha Awasthi (@girlwithcurves) did for Old Navy. She generates content in the form of Instagram posts that are tailor-made for these audiences.
2. Optimizing Page Load Speed
Page load speed refers to the time a visitor must wait until your web page is completely loaded.
Looking at mobile speeds alone, web pages take upto 15 seconds to load. Which is bad news for your business because 53% of people tend to leave if a mobile page takes any longer than 3 seconds to load.
Page loading speed and SEO have a close link. Page speed is an important factor that has an impact on a website’s search engine ranking.
Google follows a simple concept. If you can’t provide a good user experience, you don’t deserve any promotion in search engine rankings. Google’s expectations are not unreal when it too delivers high performance in record time.
But before you can optimize, you need to know what lowers your page speed. Perhaps its your page host or perhaps your site doesn’t perform well on particular browsers.
Other problems could be too many images, external embedded media, too many ads, and double-barreled code.
Work on figuring out where the problem lies, and then make the necessary changes to improve your speed. Work with a good host, prefer PNG images, host the videos on your own servers, and ensure your HTML/CSS isn’t too dense.
3. AMP it up
Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP is basically a coding standard which enables a website to load faster on mobiles.
It is a Google feature that makes a heavy desktop site more compatible for mobile devices, ensuring they load faster than normal. This has been proven to be effective, as 80% of publishers have reported increased viewability rates after adopting AMP.
Here’s how an AMP-optimized page will look in search results:
Mobile presence for websites has become all the more crucial. During 2017, 50.3% of the global traffic generated came from mobile. This has been a massive improvement since 2009, when mobile accounted for only 0.7% of all website traffic.
It’s not just this; mobile searches are overtaking desktops when it comes to local businesses as well. 88% of people use mobiles for “near me” searches and those numbers are growing by 146% year on year. Websites need to keep mobile-friendliness in mind as it is an important ranking factor.
Image Source: Landerapp
4. Leverage Image Optimization
Images are important in a website to make it more pleasing to the eye instead of just a wall of text. But when it comes to search engine indexing, they are hard to read if not placed with the right ALT Tag.
When using images on a web page, make sure that they are high-quality, original images that are related to the topic.
The right file name is important for image SEO. That is where you should use the keyword. A search engine should be able to tell what the image is about based on how you name it.
Make sure you have a caption as well. Captions also matter for image optimization. This also works because some people read the captions of images rather than the whole article.
Using Google Image Sitemaps, additional information about the images present on a web page are given to the search engine.
You just need to add all the image details to the sitemap that will help Google discover you.
But why should you go through all of this trouble? Optimizing images will rank you higher in Google Image search results, which will help drive traffic to your website. This point ties in with the second one discussed above.
Image optimization will help reduce your page load times considerably, thus improving conversion rates.
There’s also the obvious advantage of being visually appealing for your target audience. It helps build a positive user experience. And last but not least, it will push your click-through rates through the roof as your site traffic increases.
5. External Links Abound
If you link a website to yours, it is called an external link. External links are an important search ranking factor. Linking to a high authority page from your website gives your own website some authority.
Outbound links are basically for an in-depth understanding that a user might want to seek on a certain topic.
This also increases the trustworthiness, popularity, and relevance of your website, which improves the website’s search ranking. Essentially hyperlinks are counted as votes of popularity.
Marketing firm, Reboot, conducted a study back in 2016 in which they found that external links have a positive effect on search rankings. A good way to establish relevance is to link to blogs belonging to your niche. This attracts more targeted visitors to your site.
Leverage this factor by using domains of already trusted websites that have a good Domain Authority. Too much of anything is bad.
Make sure your post isn’t bursting at the seams with outbound links. Because that will prove to be counterproductive and adversely affect your search rankings.
Some important things to consider when adding external links include but aren’t limited to:
- Popularity of linking page
- Trustworthiness of the domain
- Relevance of content between source and target pages
- Anchor text used for the link
- Number of times same link is used on source page
- Variations in anchor text for links to target site
- Root domains linking to target page
6. Say No to chaos with (URL) Structure
The URL of a website is basically its address on the internet.
A simple URL needs to be well-thought-of so that it is easy not just for the users but also for the search engines to understand what the page is all about.
Rather than codes, using words and punctuation makes the URL much more useful. A complex URL with numerous parameters makes it difficult for crawlers to process the information.
Session IDs also add to the problem of content duplicity that may further affect the search engine ranking. For this, adding cookies to the site will curb the problem to a great extent.
So these were some tips to help boost your website’s search engine ranking. In addition to these tips, you also need the right tools if you want to improve your search engine ranking significantly.
Here are five tools that will help boost your rankings:
The Best SEO Tools List to Boost SEO
1. Page Speed Check Tool
Google PageSpeed Insights will help you check how fast your webpage is. We have already established that the faster a web page loads, the more traffic it generates. This tool not just tell you the webpage speed but also provides tips to improve your page load speed.
Image via Google PageSpeed Insights
2. Google Search Console
With Google Search Console, you can improve your discoverability. Through this, you can make sure that Google can reach your site.
If you have written a new article or a blog, the Search Console also has a submit URL page. However, Google claims that just submitting a URL doesn’t necessarily mean that it will get indexed, but it will certainly speed up the crawling and indexing process.
Image via Google Search Console
3. Keyword Research Tool
The Google Keyword Planner is an excellent tool for keyword research to use in SEO. I
t helps you search for all relevant keywords you can use and how they might perform.
It even combines keywords and gives you suggestions based on the product/service that you offer, the landing page or the various product categories.
Image via Google Keyword Planner
To keep track of all of your keywords and gain insights into exactly where your website stands in terms of search rankings, Pro Rank Tracker is another excellent tool.
Image via Pro Rank Tracker
4. Image Optimization Tool
TinyPNG helps compress the images on your web page for faster loading time. This tool selectively decreases colours in your image, reducing its size considerably. The good thing is that you wouldn’t even be able to see the difference in image quality.
Image via TinyPNG
5. SEMrush
A search engine marketing tool, SEMrush, is a tool that keeps a track of what your competitors are doing to improve their search rankings.
Which keywords are they ranking for and how do you compare against them? All these insights can help you improve your SEO efforts.
Image via SEMrush
SEO is going to stay and through quality content with optimized images, fast-loading pages, mobile friendliness, external links and a thoughtfully-crafted URL, you can ensure that your website gets noticed by search engines.
You have to remember that these tips wouldn’t give you returns overnight. For anything to give fruit, you need to have patience.
What you don’t need to worry about is its longevity.
SEO has proven to be an indispensable strategy when it comes to marketing your business. With our tips and tools, your website will ensure a fruitful and long-lasting SEO strategy.
Actionable seo tips
Looking for actionable and proven website search engine optimization (SEO) tips for beginners? The kind that will help you today? Here are 10 actionable SEO tips, tactics and reminders that deliver results. While this list is not exhaustive of all SEO best practices, focusing on these strategies will help drive more organic traffic to your site and improve your search rankings.
1. Take a Holistic SEO Approach
With a holistic SEO approach, your goal is to heighten engagement with your website audience. You want to fulfill their needs and maximize their experience. Rather than focusing on just one element, like keywords, it takes multiple techniques to create the best user experience – and improve your ranking over time.
Begin by creating a positive visitor experience with a quality website. Great design, web development and content are an essential part of the SEO process. Improve user experience with a site that is fast, easy to navigate and rich with clear, relevant content.
2. Create Quality Content Customized to Your Audience
One of the most actionable SEO tips for beginners – and sometimes one of the hardest – is to create quality content. It’s essential to increase your organic traffic, engage your visitors (have them stay longer) and bring them back.
So what is quality content? It’s content people want to digest because it brings them value. It informs them and provides solutions. Today’s web audience will decide whether your site does so in mere seconds.
Creatively speaking, quality content is unique, specific and credible. It uses original research, citations, links, reviews, and real customer or industry expert testimonials to further boost trustworthiness. Engaging imagery is a must.
Structure your content in a way that is attention-grabbing and easy to scan. Use subheads to divide content into clear sections that help readers navigate the page. Write short, simple sentences and pay attention to spelling and grammar.
Quality content is also an important ranking factor for search engines. It guides search engine crawlers and helps them understand – even pinpoint – your website.
Ultimately, SEO is about people. Most search engines favor user-friendly content that aligns with search intent. The bottom line: Keep your content easy to read, to the point and useful for your audience and search engines.
3. Focus on User Intent in Keyword Research
Conduct keyword research to understand how potential keywords are performing and what words users are keying when looking for the products or solutions you offer. Then integrate those words into your copy.
Your focus keyword (or keyphrase) is the search word/s in which you want your page to rank highest. A keyphrase usually consists of multiple words, which is less competitive and helps people find exactly what they’re looking for. However, keyphrases that are too long are harder to optimize because they need to appear multiple times in your copy. That can annoy readers.
Be sure to target a unique focus keyphrase on every page of your site. If you optimize for the same keyword on multiple pages of your site, Google will rank both pages lower.
Keyword Surfer is a free tool to analyze and compare popular search terms.
4. Include Keywords Where They Matter Most
Once you have identified the keyphrase for your page, use tools like the Yoast SEO plugin for keyword optimization. Include your keyphrase in the site title, domain name, description, tagline, blog categories, page titles and page content.
To rank higher and earn more relevant traffic from search engines, optimize on-page elements like page title, meta description URL and header tags with your keyphrase. Here are some helpful definitions and tips:
- SEO Page Title – Your SEO page title (or title tag) should be clear, concise and catchy. Aim for between 50–70 characters and include your focus keyphrase and site name.
- Meta Description – The meta description is the first section people see in their search results. It’s essentially “your pitch” to entice clicks. It should include your focus keyphrase and other relevant terms within about 120–155 characters and preferably end with a call-to-action. If you don’t write a meta description, Google will generate it for you, usually from the first paragraph of your page text.
- URL – Your URL should be around 3–5 words long, yet descriptive. It should concisely explain the page using your keyphrase and be human-readable. Use hyphens to separate words.
- Headers – You should properly tag subheads with the appropriate HTML header (H2, H3, etc.) tags. This will improve scanability of your content for readers and search engines.
- Images – Google is moving to a more visual search. Include your page keyphrase in your image titles, descriptions and alt attributes (the alternate text for an image if a user cannot view it – and an important element for accessibility to all) to describe your images to search engines and screen readers. This includes retitling the file name if it doesn’t reflect your main keywords (e.g. “actionable-seo-tips.jpg” instead of “img1234.jpg”).
5. Take a Mobile-First Approach
Mobile device usage has skyrocketed in the past few years and is only expected to increase as smart devices become more accessible. Many companies don’t realize the importance of a mobile-friendly site.
But when you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, it hurts your SEO and your audience’s perception of your business. An astonishingly 52% of users are less likely to engage with your company again due to a bad mobile experience.
As of September 2020, Google is switching to mobile-first indexing for all sites. Use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool to see how Google’s mobile search agent views your site.
6. Add Internal Links in Logical Places
Internal links are hyperlinks that point to another page on the same website. These links help users navigate their way around your site. Crawlers will have an easier time understanding your site structure, too. They also help spread link equity (ranking power) around your site.
Be intentional about and cross-linking your pages. Use descriptive words in anchor text that give a sense of the topic or keywords the page will target. When used strategically, internal links can significantly boost a site’s performance in the search engines.
7. Build Valuable Connections Using Outbound Links
Using outbound links is an easy and actionable SEO tip that is important for your SEO strategy. Outbound links help guide your readers to relevant and credible sources for further reading. They also help improve your credibility with search engines, telling them you are a trusted authority on your particular topic.
This doesn’t mean excessively linking to other websites. Be selective. Users will get frustrated if links aren’t relevant to the topic you’re discussing.
8. Leverage Social Media
Social media continues to be a big part of daily life, so much so, that Google has started recognizing social search results as being of value. Moreover, social networks are increasingly being used as search engines themselves. In fact, more and more users are turning to these channels for answers.
As a result, social media is one of the best and most affordable places to promote your content and drive traffic to your website. Be present on social media, promote your content, and encourage your followers and readers to share it with their networks. This is a great way to engage with your audience, create buzz for your website and garner attention.
9. Remove Anything that Slows Down Your Site
Humans and search engines prioritize the loading speed of websites. Studies suggest that 40% of visitors leave sites that take longer than three seconds to load. A slow page can frustrate users and, ultimately, discourage people from buying your product or reading your content.
Page load times are important, so get rid of any non-essentials that bog down your website. User experience is a critical element of SEO, as it significantly impacts time spent on your site, which influences your search engine ranking. By improving your user experience, you will notice a significant improvement on site metrics, including conversion rates.
10. Stay Current and Give Visitors a Reason to Return
Sites with dynamic content often rank higher than those with static content. That’s why blogs and directories (like Wikipedia) do so well on search engines. They are constantly being updated with new and relevant content.
Keeping the content on your site current and informative helps build trust with your audience. Most likely, your audience relies on your site for useful information or products within your market.
Final Thoughts on Actionable Website SEO Tips to Help Increase Your Rankings
Search engines are getting smarter every day and will only continue improve. They want to ensure they display top-notch, highly relevant results. They also want to push out and remove “spammy” content that adds no value to users.
Incorporating the tips above can help ensure your website is accessible to search engines and humans. But remember, don’t sacrifice a positive visitor experience by trying to overly please the search bots.
Conclusion
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