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Best SEO Practices for Website Development
Best SEO Practices for Website Development
Every day, hundreds of thousands of websites are created. Yet Google's front page never really changes much; why is that?
Well, it’s simple. You see, Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines use specific algorithms to decide which pages to show when certain phrases are searched and how those pages are ranked.
Many organizations pay Google and other search engines to push their websites and show them at the top of the results, regardless of how those algorithms work, but not everybody can afford
SEO is a way of optimizing your page to make it friendlier to Search Engines for crawling and indexing your webpages and improving your rankings without directly paying search engine companies.
Why is SEO Important?
Well, if Google doesn’t like your website, it doesn’t show it to people. If fewer people see it, then fewer people click on it, and you lose traffic. This lack of viewers can be a significant loss, especially if you’re running a “marketplace website” or just trying to sell your wares and services.
Searchenginejournal can show you how much of a loss that can be for websites.With 53% of all website traffic coming from organic search methods like SEO, it is a significant market to miss! It also should be known that according to this same site, Google controls above 90% of that traffic.
These stats mean that it’s a smart idea to get on Google’s good side, which youcan do by optimizing your web pages according to Google’s “algorithms”. The biggest question is, though, how and where do you start?
The things to know: Best SEO Practices for Website Development
Here’s what you need to know. There arevery broadlytwo kinds of SEO you should pay attention to. On-page SEO Off-page SEO
On-page SEO is the optimization you do to the parts of your website that you can physically see, including keyword usage, content etc. In contrast,Off-page SEOis done to optimize the factors that aren’t as apparent, including Links, Trust and Users.
Confused? Think of it this way.
On-page SEO is changing around factors on your website that users can see, and Off-page SEO is doing the same to factors that they can’t see.
Now let’s talk about each of them and figure out what we need to be paying attention to!
On-page SEO
Keywords and Keyphrases are certain words and phrases that allow search engines to locate your website when they’re typed into the search bar.
The logic behind them is to incorporate them into your site to let users know that you’re providing the service they’re looking for. The effect is similar to an advertisement outside a shop, telling you that they now sell a specific product.
With that understood, here’s how you figure out the right Keywords for yourself:
The first thing to do is to figure out a “Seed Word, ” a word or phrase connected to the industry you work within or the service you’re selling. An example of this is using the Seed word, “Cake” or “Bread,” if you’re running a Bakery.
Plug this “Seed word” into the Google search bar or use a keyword finding application. They will provide you with all the possible keywords and phrases you could use.
Pick a few that would fit naturally into your site. Trying to force keywords to work or placing them unnaturally can be more detrimental than beneficial.
Once you’ve chosen some that fit your website, all that’s left to do is use them in your content, and you’re good to go!
Your content is your website’s lifeblood. If it isn’t up to the standard, the quality of the entire website goes down, regardless of everything else. There are some measures to take to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Your content must always be fresh. Don’t take long gaps between posting something or the other. Sites seen as “Inactive” are less likely to be shown to users.
Your content must be unique! By this, we don’t mean you can’t speak on the topics everyone else is talking about; we suggest that you should find a unique way to do so. Unique content is worth a lot more in Google’s eyes.
Add keywords but never spam. Not only does spamming make your site look unprofessional, but search engines can also push its ranking down and not to mention, users will probably trust your website less.
If your content is healthy and well optimized, your website already has a leg up over a lot of competition. Keep it that way.
Looking into and learning HTML is a valuable tool to add to your belt. With HTML, you can:
Set up a page’s meta-description and title tags, both of which can be used to add more keywords.
Set up proper “heading tabs”to help search engines and users read your page.
Set up “Image alt”text for the visually impaired or those who can’t load an image.
Set up “Schema Markups”. They’re aesthetically pleasing and make your site look more trusting, drawing in more users regardless of ranking.
Set up “semantic HTML5 elements” and “Meta robots text” in each page. The HTML5 elements let you further specify different page elements, which will make them easier to crawl. The Meta-robots text will allow you to tell search engine bots which parts of the page and site they have access to and are allowed to index.
All-in-all, HTML can allow your website to communicate with search engines, allowing them to do their job more efficiently and thus placing your site higher-up in ranking.
Now let’s move onto the Off-page SEO factors.
Off-page SEO
Links are great, especially external ones, since they actively send users from different sites to yours, bypassing the need for SEO altogether. But, even though that’s true, links to your website still hold a lot of weight for search engines.
If you want to take full advantage, there are a few rules to abide by!
Make sure that links to your website aren’t spammed.
Links to your website should not be placed unnaturally.
Ensure that the same website isn’t linking you over and over again. Links from newer websites are much better.
Don’t purchaselinks back to your website. If Google finds out you’ve been buying backlinks, your website can suffer a strike.
A good rule of thumb to remember is, any links that feel naturally placed within a website’s content and are from newer sources are the ones you should strive to increase.
Make sure that links to your website aren’t spammed.
Links to your website should not be placed unnaturally.
Ensure that the same website isn’t linking you over and over again. Links from newer websites are much better.
Don’t purchaselinks back to your website. If Google finds out you’ve been buying backlinks, your website can suffer a strike.
A good rule of thumb to remember is, any links that feel naturally placed within a website’s content and are from newer sources are the ones you should strive to increase.
Trust is defined by how much search engines trust your domain. Certain factors about your website and your domain can influence that trust:
The older the domain, the more search engines trust them. Thus it’s always a viable strategy to buy older domains to build your site on.
The higher the bounce rate for your site, the lower the trust. Keep an eye on your bounce rate and fix any problem areas.
Links to your website from less trusted sites canlower your site’s trust as well. Keep links out of shadier websites.
Establishing identity is an excellent way to build trust. If your site is for shopping, then identify it as such.
The higher the trust Google and other search engines have for your website, the more they will show it to other users since search engines will calculate that there will be a higher chance of user satisfaction there.
The traffic that comes to your website can influence how often it comes up in search engines. Different factors are extracted about the type of traffic your website attracts, such as;
The user’s geographical location.
The user’s interests via their search history.
The pages on your site the user mainly visits
What kind of cliques the user is a part of?
What kind of service was the user looking for when they clicked on your site?
All this information is extracted and saved about your website. This way, search engines know who to recommend the website to more precisely.
An example of this being, a game shop attracting users with histories of gaming and electronics will mostly have its website suggested to the same group of people with similar interests.
You've optimized but now keep it polished!
Now you know a bit about On-page and Off-page SEO, but that’s only half the battle. The next half is ensuring that your website is functioning smoothly and identifying problem points to fix them.
You can do this with the help of two applications to start with, Google Search Console and Google Analytics
Google Search Console (GSC)
Google Search Console allows you to:
View and edit the information stored about your site in Google’s servers.
Allows you to submit sitemaps to make crawling and indexing easier for Google Bots.
Block Google search engine from accessing certain web pages.
View the number of “strikes” Google has assigned your site.
Allows you to submit sitemaps to make crawling and indexing easier for Google Bots.
Block Google search engine from accessing certain web pages.
View the number of “strikes” Google has assigned your site.
And a lot more. GSC is the perfect tool to manage your website on a broad scale.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics allows you to view specific information too but in real-time. A few examples are:
Details about the traffic your website is getting and the different types of traffic on each page.
Monitor the “Bounce rate” on any given page.
Calculate the revenue your page has gathered over a certain amount of time. And much more.
Monitor the “Bounce rate” on any given page.
Calculate the revenue your page has gathered over a certain amount of time. And much more.
While Google Analytics is more complex than GSC, it’s the perfect tool to identify problem spots and fix them before they cause a lot of damage.
Conclusion
A website is like a boat, and SEO is the sea. If you take care of it and make sure there are no leaks, there is no reason for the sea to drown it! So be diligent and catch the leaks before you go down. You’ll rise through the ranks in even the most competitive search engines.
Will it happen all at once? No. But if you keep at it, keep chasing the trends and further optimize your website, your ranking will only keep going higher, and so will your user influx.
A website is like a boat, and SEO is the sea. If you take care of it and make sure there are no leaks, there is no reason for the sea to drown it! So be diligent and catch the leaks before you go down. You’ll rise through the ranks in even the most competitive search engines.
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