Building SEO into Your Website

Design is Critical for Organic SEO

Search Engine Optimization – The Holy Grail of having a great ranking on Google – like on page 1 – is expensive, right?  As the old song goes “It ain’t necessarily so!”  You don’t necessarily have to spend a ton of money on SEO to “build your website’s domain authority” or have “long-tail key words” and all the other things that SEO experts talk about.

Yes, those things may be valuable , but there are some simple (if time-consuming) things  that you and/or your website designer can do that get you ranked higher faster – and cheaper – than all the “back links,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera that you hear about.  Most people start with an idea for their website, get it built – perhaps with some key words and then – after the fact – start thinking about SEO.

Do some research (and hard work) BEFORE your site is launched (or RE-launched) you can save yourself a ton of money.   There are some simple things.  You and your website designer can take a look and see what sites are ranked organically high for your category.  (Organic is just a fancy term for “they didn’t buy ads or pay Google to be ranked on page 1.)

The sites that have the top ranking probably have their position because of what they say about themselves.

Search Engine look for key things to “find” websites for searchers.  Here are NINE Important things to research, execute and include in YOUR site:

1. Meta tags – basically PAGE TITLES. The higher ranked sites probably have ones that will coincide with search terms that people looking for their (and YOUR) services use to look for them.  You can use the same or similar ones to get YOUR site found!
2. Meta descriptions – brief descriptions of what the page titles mention, and which include a CTA (Call to Action) like “call us for a quote.” The higher ranked sites may or may not use these, BUT you can and get ranked higher because of them.
3. Proper sizing for various devices – Your site needs to be optimized for Smart phones and tablets, NOT just desktop or laptop computers. YOU can gain ranking position IF your site is easily visible to ALL devices.
4. Keywords – Check the higher ranking sites for the keywords in THEIR copy and make sure yours is at least as good (BUT, don’t stuff!)
5. Blogs – Most good designers will try to get clients to have at LEAST three blogs, with at least one added monthly. Blogs are the most important “social media” pieces you can execute to increase your ranking.
6. Pictures – It’s important for UX – user experience – and UI – user interaction – to have great pictures that support your content.
7. Videos – Google loves videos (that could be why they bought YouTube) so try to get one or more either ON your site, or a link to them FROM your site.
8. Rich Content – Your site should have quality visuals of any and all types, to support well-written content, not just something you bought for $5 from Fiverr. The better the quality of your content, the higher you will get ranked.
9. Links to other website – It’s great to get these, some of which can come from having YOUR blogs referred to by others OR having testimonials that refer to your clients’ websites

These things can get you closer to “Page 1 ranking” without spending hundreds – or even thousands – of dollars a month.  The more of them you do, the more YOUR site will improve its location when people are looking for things you offer.