Having the right search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for your website can make all of the difference in how search engines crawl and rank your site and, in turn, how visible your site is to users and potential clients.
When it comes to SEO, however, knowing what is “right” can be tricky – and diving in without a plan can lead to ineffective strategies, a waste of business resources and, possibly worst of all, problems with or penalties from Google.
To help you start to pinpoint what would be the best SEO strategy for your business and goals, below are the fundamental SEO features to understand and use as the basis for developing your strategy.
Fundamental Features to Focus on for Effective Optimization
Effective SEO strategies should invoke a combination of on-page and off-page elements, including:
- Content – While your content can give your business a voice and help foster connections with users, it will also be one of the key elements of your website that search engines crawl and rank. So, develop your content thoughtfully, taking the time to plan and carefully write your pages. Content that will be more highly regarded will be pages that are well written, free of typos and grammar errors, as well as those that offer some interesting perspective or unique insight into a topic.
- Meta data – This includes the title tags and descriptions for each content page. This data will not only help search engines identify the type of content on a page, but it will also be what users see on search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Navigation – Another fundamental component to SEO will be the navigation for a site, with more logical, clearer navigation structures typically being preferable (for users and search engines).
- Internal linking – This refers to the links between pages or content on your site. Thoughtfully adding internal links, based on related topics, can improve the user experience, as well as a site’s optimization.
- Page loading times – Keep an attentive eye on this factor, as longer load times take away from the user experience and, consequently, tend to lead to poorer rankings in search engines. In general, you will want your page loading times to be within three to four seconds.
- Schema – This refers to a specific lexicon of tags added to the HTML to enhance how pieces of information from content pages will be featured in SERPs. Again, while this can improve the user experience, it can also positively stand out to search engines, leading to better rankings.
- External linking – Referring to the links outside of a website, external linking can involve its own complex strategies, as we have noted in a previous blog. Essentially, though, external link building should be focused on gaining quality links (rather than going for quantity alone).
- Content distribution – This involves strategies to share content in forums outside of SERPs, such as in different social media platforms, via newsletters, etc.
Keep in mind that these fundamentals should just be a starting point for your SEO strategy. To take a basic SEO strategy to the next level and realize the best results from your website, contact the professionals at Epic Web Results.
Contact Epic Web Results for Effective Internet Marketing Solutions
When you are ready to develop the best SEO strategy for your website and business, contact the professionals at Epic Web Results by calling (800) 501-9724 or by emailing us using the contact form on this page.
