10 Ways to Optimize Your Website for Better Search Engine Rankings

Knowing how to optimize your website is imperative for your site’s success. It will not only improve your search engine results pages (SERPs) rankings but also ensure your site is working exactly the way it should.

With excellent SEO, you can drive more traffic and gain more opportunities to convert leads. The tips and strategies in this article will help you in optimizing content for SEO for your website to aid in driving up traffic and potentially getting more conversions.

What is SEO?

Before we dive in, let’s quickly start with the basics. SEO refers to “search engine optimization” –  a process of increasing a website’s traffic via search engine results. BEO helps websites to become more discoverable especially when internet users search for terms related to it.

This way, website owners have a better chance of getting new customers.

For instance, if you sell makeup and beauty products and you offer tips on how to apply makeup on your website along with an article on the best treatments for acne and pimples, following ideal SEO practices, an internet user searching for a keyword like “how to treat pimples” would have a good chance of finding your article – and therefore, your brand.

This is the power of SEO!

10 Ways to Increase your Search Engine Rankings

To get started, you will need to improve the SEO on your website to drive more traffic. The tips below are some of the content SEO best practices and they will set your brand up for success if followed to a tee.

1. Do a comprehensive analysis of your website data

One or two pieces of data won’t be enough to tell you much. However, when you gather lots of data, you’ll begin to notice patterns. If a few internet users visit your site without clicking on your call-to-action (CTA) button, you may not have a problem.

But if an immense percentage of visitors ignore your CTA, then you should consider making some adjustments. Google Search Console (GSC) traffic data along with user behavior reports can help you understand better.

For example, user behavior reports display how users react when they reach your website. GSC data tracks key metrics like the number of sessions and unique sessions, bounce rate, and so much more. With this data, you can analyze specific patterns.

Referral sources alone can expose a lot of information about your website visitors. How are people discovering your website? Observe your web pages that get more traffic and better conversions than others.

Do some reverse-engineering using the success of that page and replicate it across your website.

2. Engage in keyword research

Some years ago, ranking for a particular keyword was as easy as buttoning a shirt. All you had to do was write a 300-word article with your selected keywords in it and rank for those keywords the next day! Unfortunately, SEO doesn’t work like this anymore.

These days you need tools like Ubersuggest to help you find the right keywords that are directly related to your niche or business. You can use it to find long-tail keywords that match your potential customer’s search intent.

Ponder why they would search for a certain keyword and what they would hope to see on a page about it. You can begin with a broad keyword. For example, if you offer home salon services, you can start with a keyword like “salon services.”

Ubersuggest will then present you with a list of keywords that you can filter in many ways. In essence, you’re looking for long-tail keywords you can use to draw in a target audience. This is one content SEO strategy you can do repeatedly as you create more pages for your website.

Be sure to write long, in-depth articles that have comprehensive information on the topic as possible.

3. Produce content that is long and rich in value

The ideal blog post should not be less than 1000 words. If you’re optimizing content for SEO, predetermine the minimum length of your content first. Go to Google and in the search bar, enter your primary keyword.

Now check the top 10 results you see on the SERP. Are they longer than 1000 words? If yes, then you should make your content just as long (if not longer).

However, content length isn’t everything but it does send a signal to search engines that you’re providing a lot of information that users may find interesting. And you’re more likely to rank up high if lots of people spend time on that page.

4. On-page SEO optimization

With on-page SEO optimization, you get to optimize your website while building certain pages. URL slugs, meta tags, headings, and subheadings, etc., all fall into this category. Your content SEO strategy should revolve around using your primary keyword in your headline.

If possible, try to insert the keyword at the beginning of the heading or close to it. Also, try to make it appear in one subheading at least as well as in the slug. In addition, try to spread the keyword throughout the body of the content.

You should aim for 0.5 percent to 2.5 percent keyword density about the total number of words. However, avoid going beyond 2.5 percent so you don’t end up looking like a keyword stuffer.

5. Off-page SEO optimization

Also referred to as off-site SEO, off-page SEO is the method by which you optimize your website through external means. Elements of off-page SEO that can improve your website’s SEO include guest blogging, influencer marketing, social media activity, brand mentions, etc.

We will cover backlinks later in this article, however, their importance in SEO cannot be overemphasized. You should endeavor to get links from high-authority websites and avoid getting from low ones.

They won’t improve your SEO efforts and can, in fact, even hurt them You should aim for reputable publications when researching backlinks.

6. Mobile optimization

A lot more people are accessing websites using their mobile devices. That means many potential conversions are searching for your product or services via their smartphones and tablets. IAboutthis, Google has created the mobile-first index.

This means that if your website is mobile-optimized, you will rank better. Optimizing your website for mobile isn’t that hard either. A simple responsive design is quite easy to achieve. WordPress has several themes to choose from.

Most of them have responsive designs built-in, which means you don’t need to worry about adding any extra codes.

7. Optimize page speed

When it comes to optimizing content for SEO, page speed is a crucial consideration. If you go to a website that takes a long time to load, you’ll likely close the page and look for another website that has what you’re looking for.

Don’t let people leave your website in disgust at its slow speed. Make use of Google’s PageSpeed Insights to gain valuable information on how fast your website loads across all devices. Also, it can tell you what specific steps to take at fixing and speeding its loading speed.

8. Try to obtain high-quality backlinks

SEO content optimization cannot be complete without mentioning the importance of backlinks. Arguably, they are the most powerful factor that can quickly drive a website up the SERP ranks.

This is because whenever a high-quality website links to your page, Google instantly interprets it as a sign that your site is credible. Thus, as you build a solid backlink portfolio, your pages will rapidly climb up the ranks.

Although getting high-quality backlinks takes a lot of effort, however, the results can be nothing short of amazing. Try to email some influencers and other blogs within your niche. Request to share your article with them and point them to a page where you’ve shared a piece of their content as well.

Conclusion

In truth, SEO can be somewhat complex, however, understanding the basics will give you a head start. So, start by gathering as much data as you can and engage in thorough research. Craft content that is focused on your audience but tries to make it more attractive than your competitors.

Develop different campaigns for both on-page and off-page SEO and ensure your website loads as quickly as possible on desktop and mobile. Also, don’t forget to attract as many backlinks as you can.