Five Simple Ways to Improve Search Engine Optimization

Filed in Search Engine Marketing
Published Aug 12th, 2023

Search Engine Optimization is vital for any company doing business online. Paid search advertising is a great channel for lead generation (when done well), but it's vital to have a steady stream of qualified users who find your website organically. If you're not getting the web traffic you desire, you probably need to improve your search engine optimization (SEO).

Becoming a popular site on the internet is similar to becoming popular at a party. At a party, people gravitate towards people who are interesting and have a lot of friends. SEO works the same way. Having the right content (being interesting) and links to your site from other quality sites (having the right friends) are the two most important factors in search engine optimization.

We'll talk about generating links in another blog post; for now, let's talk about the kind of on-site content that improves your SEO.

Offer Useful Information
In the past, top search engine rankings could be achieved by simply stuffing your content with a lot of keywords. No more. Today's search engines, such as Google and Bing, prioritize content quality vs keyword density. Yes, having the right keywords in your content matters, but the context matters more. If you write content that answers important questions and provides useful information (such as Five Simple Ways to Improve Search Engine Optimization), you'll start to rank higher and higher.

Plan Your Content
The key to generating useful content is to put yourself in the shoes of your potential client. What kind of problems are they facing, and what information do they need to solve them? Create content around those topics. If you are also running a paid search engine marketing campaign, the Google search terms report can be very helpful for SEO, because it will tell you the actual phrases users are searching.

Write Titles That Mean Something To The User
The titles and headers on your page should have meaning to your users. This is not the place to be clever. If you have a page explaining your company's services, don't title the page "Awesome Sauce." Title the service page "Our Services." Search engines will crawl your site and see that you offer X, Y, and Z as services - and you'll gain credibility. When somebody searches for those services, you'll be in the mix. The same goes for pricing info, staff info, whatever.

Share Your Contact And Location Information
Users don't necessarily need to know everything about you, but they probably want to know where you're located and how to contact you. Make sure this information is easy to find - by users and by Google. Google and Bing will use your location information to help users who search for services in their area. (Also, create a Google Business profile, and keep it up to date).

Include Tags For Your Images And Internal Links
Proper tags are very important to SEO. 

Alt tags are especially imporant if you're selling physical products. These tags were created for accessibility reasons, to help visually impaired users understand the content of an image, but they also convey information to the search engines regarding the content on your page. If you have photos of a desk chair that's for sale, use the alt tag to share information about that chair. Instead of an alt tag that says "chair," create an alt tag that says "Yamaha Ergonomic Office Chair" (or whatever the case may be).

Similarly, title tags on links were created to alert users as to the content of a linked page. Search engines use these tags to catalogue and rank the quality of linked content. Don't just link to a page on your site, use title tags to preview what the user will find there.

In future posts, we'll talk about the best way to write titles and subheadings, proper link structure, managing your Google and Bing business profiles, and creating a content calendar for a company blog.

Read more articles about Search Engine Marketing.