Best SEO Practices

 The first thing that people ask me when they are thinking about developing a website/blog for their company/business is "How do I get my website/blog to display on the first page of Google's search engine?" Unfortunately there are no easy answers to this. To have a well ranked website is hard work and it takes time. You still need to market your website and let visitors know that your business is available on the World Wide Web.

The safest way to start off with your website/blog is to focus on content. I have a saying "Content is king", the more information/articles you upload on your website/blog and the more this information is informative, the better change your website/blog will have to get the highest rank in Google's search engine.

Google gives priority to websites/blogs with informative, new and fresh content, they are starting to penalize websites/blogs with copied information and illegal tricks to get higher rankings. I'm sure that you've done some searches in Google's search engine and received indexes that are not relative to your search. This is what Google would like to prevent. If you search something, it must be more direct, it must be informative/fresh content that you can use and get the correct/trustworthy answers that you were looking for.

The more info/pages/posts you add to your website/blog, the more Google will index and you will have a better change to be more visible on the search engine. Imagine if you upload 1 - 5 new fresh content pages/posting per day, how many indexes will be available on Google's search engine after a year. Google sends out bots every day and index new information that you've uploaded to your website. Unfortunately websites with static pages and no new fresh content, will not rank very high.

A website with more informative text/articles/postings will rank much higher than a website with only images. Regular maintenance and updates on a website/blog will also have a positive influence on returning visits to your website/blog.

SEO tips:

1. WordPress must have plugins:

After you've built your website's structure, install all the "WordPress must have plugins".

2. Keywords/Meta Tags:

Add strong Meta tags to your posts and pages. In my view you only need to add one strong 2 - 3 word long Meta tag to each page or post. These Meta tags should be appearing in your content. If you add Meta tags which doesn't appear in your content, Google will penalize your website. This is to avoid receiving unrelated content in Google's search engine while using keyword/meta tag searches. Also add your strong meta tags of all your posts/pages to the "Basic SEO plugin" under "Keywords", dividing the keywords with a comma.

3. WordPress page/post titles:

Your page/post title is very important for Google indexes. Your title should be strong, relevant and descriptive of the specific post/page.

4. Website/Blog Tagline:

Add a short tagline description of your website, which will describe what your website/blog is all about, under "Settings/General".

5. Meta description:

Write a strong Meta description, not more than 150 words, about the content of your website/blog and add it to the "Basic SEO plugin", under description.

6. Broken links:

Make sure that all your website links are working and directing to the correct pages/posts/URLS. You can use the "Link Checker plugin" to make sure everything is working. It is a frustration to visitors clicking on a link and it's not working. This can influence visitors not to visit your site again.

7. Responsive website:

Make sure your website is responsive or mobile compatible, to provide visitors with the functionality to access your website through different desktop and mobile device sizes.

8. Google Webmaster Tools

Register your website/blog on Google Webmaster Tools and verify it. Add your Google XML Sitemap and test if it's working properly. Google Webmaster Tools is a product that will assist you to identify problem areas on website/blog like:

  • Crawl errors.
  • Site speed on desktops and mobile devices.
  • Identify keywords that visitors use to get to your website and how high you rank for a specific keyword.
  • Shows you incoming links to your website.
  • The number of impressions.
  • The number of Google indexes etc.

9. Google Analytics:

Register your website on Google Analytics and add the tracking code on your website/blog, under the "WP Google Analytics plugin" Google Analytics provide must have information about your visitors market. Google Analytics have a lot of functions you can use to get stats on important aspects of your website.

Some useful stats on Google Analytics like:

  • The amount of sessions (how many visits your website/blog received, unique and returning visits)
  • The amount of users (how many unique visitors are visiting your website, which normally works on an IP address and will only register on user per month from a specific IP address).
  • Total amount of page views.
  • Average pages visited per session.
  • Average time spent per session.
  • Bounce rate. If a bounce rate's percentage is high, it means that visitors are not really visiting other pages or posts on your website. The bounce in and bounce out.
  • View your content pages which are mostly visited and get an idea what type of content your visitors are looking for and concentrate on this type of info to get more visits.
  • View how people get access to your website, is t by direct URL typing or through organic searches.
  • View the search keywords visitors are using to get access to your website.
  • View the devices visitors are using to visit your website.
  • Get an idea where visitors are clicking on your website, with "In Page Analytics"

10. Social Media

Create social media business pages on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linked In etc. and link it with icons or widgets on your website. Use social media pages as an add on to get more visitors on your website. Publish short teaser posts on your social media pages, with a link to your website with more detail on the article/post/page. Your website is your first priority regarding content and social media pages are only tools to get more visitors on your website. To only have social media pages instead of a website, is not a good idea as social media have limited functionality in comparison with 'n WordPress website.

12. Create videos:

About your business and upload it to YouTube. Embed the uploaded videos from YouTube into your website, which will also improve your website rankings, as YouTube is one of Google's products.

13. Look at your competitors:

Competitors that started with a website and online presence before you will have an advantage above your website and online presence. Your website need to be more informative and detailed than your competitor's. Try to search and find keywords that your competitor is using to outrank you and provide more informative information relative on those keywords on your own website.

14. Determine your market:

Determine you clientele market and geographic area. If the purpose with your website is to attract visitors globally, it will be much more difficult get high rankings due to the fact that your website will compete with the global online market. If your clients are more country, state, city or town based, make sure that you mention your country, state, city or town, often in your website content pages/posts.

Searches can be narrowed by visitors in search engines, by adding a country, state, city or town, which will be an advantage to your website if it ranks high for a specific geographic area. You can even add a country, state, city or town in your website's tagline and Meta description.

14. Interactive website:

Ad comment fields beneath posts for visitors to have interaction feedback and discussions on your articles/posts. Give feedback to comments as soon as possible and try to give visitors with comments, answers as soon as possible.

15. Google AdWords:

The indexes regarding a keyword that are displaying in Google searches, normally on top, at the bottom and on the right, are Google ads. This is the only way you can get top rankings regarding a keyword by paying for ads and keywords. The rest of the indexes that will appear in between the ads in the middle, are called "organic searches". Every website that is indexed with Google's search engine will compete for rankings on keywords in organic searches.

With Google AdWords you have a much better change to outrank competitors with Google AdWords, than with organic searches. To rank in organic searches are hard work and takes time to outrank competitors, but unfortunately you have to pay for Google AdWords. You can register and account on Google AdWords and pay for keywords you think visitors will possibly use to get to your website. Keywords that are popular and have a lot of search results are not the ideal keywords due to high competition in Google's search engine. You need to determine and set a budget for Google AdWords to prevent over spending.

15. Avoid SEO Scammers:

Be aware of SEO scammers that will contact you and promise high rankings on Google. They attend to make money out of you, without any great successes visible in your Google Stats. Some of them will give the impression that your traffic to your website is growing, but normally using software (bots) to create the impression your website is receiving more visitors, but it is actually a scam. They generate fictional visits to your website and are of no value.



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