Optimise your website and increase your organic reach by improving your SEO
SEO is important when it comes to getting the most bang for your buck with your website! SEO stands for search engine optimisation – and refers to the way a search engine sees and ranks your website on its database, so when people search for your business name or terms/keywords related to your industry, your website shows (or doesn’t).
According to google there are 255 different factors that is taken into consideration when it comes to your websites ranking. No one knows what these are but over the years, developers have managed to work out a lot of what does go into the search engine ranking process and, in turn, have discovered ways to increase your sites visibility.
In the world or digital marketing ranking on the first page of a search engine is critical. 93% of online experiences start at a search engine and 75% of people never scroll past the first page of results.
You have a website and visibility so make the most of it! Stop paying crazy amounts for google and Facebook ads and start increasing your websites reach organically. Organic reach refers to people finding your website with out the use of paid platforms.
I have 5 useful tips you can do right now to help your websites SEO and increase the traffic to your webpage organically – meaning no extra costs involved!
- The first tip is one that gets overlooked! Make sure you are hosting in the country where your target market is located. If you are selling products in America, host in America, however if you are hosting in America but your target market is in New Zealand your website will lag! We all know slow websites are annoying – but did you realise 40% of people will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load! Hosting plays an important part in your websites upload speed!
- Make sure your website has an SSL certificate! An SSL certificate is a type of digital certificate that provides authentication for a website and enables an encrypted connection. These certificates communicate to the client that the web service host demonstrated ownership of the domain to the certificate authority at the time of certificate issuance. Basically, it means its legit! Have you ever tried to access a site where there was no SSL certificate? It prompts you to say the link is dodgy! If your customers are getting this warning when accessing your site, you are losing a tonne of business!
- Make sure your website has a mobile friendly version! In fact, try on a variety of different devices and see how user friendly your website really is! The display should adjust to the different screen sizes. If you have to zoom in, chances are it is not mobile friendly! Google itself has admitted that mobile friendliness impacts a webpage google ranking.
- Get yourself noticed using external links. The more other webpages that link to your business the better your business will rank. These are called external links. You can look at listing your website on local and national directories or perhaps guest blog for another website – including links to your business page.
- Keep navigation simple! – Make sure your fonts and images are easy to read and see. Make sure your contact details are easily accessible, easy to read and up to date! I myself forgot to update my email address and had a client unable to contact me WHOOPS! Luckily, she accessed me on another platform but I quickly made the changes to avoid that situation again! Simple navigation also gives the people viewing your website an ease of use! There’s nothing worse than searching having to click through 10 links to find the article you read yesterday to show your friend! Everything should be accessible within 3 clicks from the home or landing pages
Don't forget to check out our other tips and tricks - including a list of directories you can use to increase your external links!