How to Give Your Website an SEO Makeover

Featured article by Sam G, Independent Technology Author

Do you want a website that ranks well in search engines for your chosen keywords? If so, you need to carry out some SEO (search engine optimization) practices. To the unknowing, SEO is both a mammoth and complex task.

But, the good news is that it’s easier than you think to give your site an SEO makeover! By following these SEO tips and tricks, you’ll soon see the fruits of your labor.

Are you ready to get started? Good! Here is what you need to know:

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Keep your page content relevant

Your website will no doubt have a lot of pages. But, is all your content relevant? If you’re not sure, it’s worth checking them out. You might not realize it, but search engines rank pages lower if they feel the content isn’t relevant.

Not sure what I mean? Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you run a website selling motorbike spare parts. One of your product pages advertises an item used for lubricating things like chains. Let’s also assume that, for some reason, you offer details on how to lubricate door hinges. As you can tell, that’s an example of irrelevant content.

People go to your website because they want to buy spare parts for motorcycles. They don’t wish to read about how to carry out DIY jobs at home!

Make your images descriptive

So you’ve got an award-winning website that looks brilliant. It works well for both desktop, laptop, and mobile devices. But, how accessible is it to people that have disabilities?

One stumbling block for such users is when images have no alternative text description. On a similar note, search engines also won’t know what the images are about. When you use images on your website, make sure they have text descriptions.

The <img> tag has an “alt” attribute that can get used to describe the content of the image. So, for example, the image on your home page might have an alt attribute of “Harley Davidson bike.”

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Find out what people search for online

When it comes to optimizing the text content on your pages, you need to know your target audience. People go onto search engines and type in specific keywords and phrases. Are you using the wrong keywords in your content? If so, there’s a danger you won’t attract the right audience.

What you can do is use a tool like Keyword Canine to give you the heads-up on your competition. Such tools enable you to find out which relevant keywords you need to use in your pages. You can also use them to view the keywords used on your competitor’s sites too.

Your goal is to make your content appear in relevant search engines. That way, there’s a higher chance that you’ll get more traffic to your site.

Check the speed of your website

Last, but not least, you need to check how fast your website is running. Google uses site speed as one of its ranking factors, so it’s crucial your site is as fast as it can be for your visitors.

Be sure to remove any unnecessary HTML code or scripts from your Web pages. And try to host static files from cloud servers such as Amazon S3.