By PIXIT
22.04.2020
Over 3.9 billion people in the world use the Internet. Many of these people use Google to look around for their next purchase, to find a restaurant to eat at or to look for products and services online.
Many companies would like to use this huge number of potential customers for their own benefit. Some large companies use their huge advertising budgets to dominate Google searches for specific keywords, but there are also ways you can get on the front page of Google with a much smaller budget.
There are measures for "Search Engine Optimization", SEO for short, which optimize your website to be found by as many users as possible. If these measures are applied correctly, you can compete with companies that have many times your advertising budget available. Therefore, we would like to present you the 10 best SEO measures now.
Measure 1: On-page optimization of loading times
There is nothing more frustrating than a website that takes a long time to load. That's why the loading speed of a web page is one of the most important factors for Google to determine which web page should be at the top of a search. Google has an interest in keeping its users on Google for as long as possible, so preference is given to websites that can attract and retain customers' interest. To optimize the loading speed of your website, you should use modern image formats (f.e. .webm) and make sure that the loading effort is as low as possible. You can achieve this by optimizing your images and videos for the web, minifying and combining your CSS and JavaScript files and generally making sure that the number of your requests is low and that you use modern loading and caching techniques.
Measure 2: SSL encryption
Google only places websites high up in a search if the users are protected by Google on the website. Therefore, you should make sure that you use up-to-date security measures, such as SSL encryption, so that your customers' data is secure. This way you will be better ranked by Google Bots and your customers will feel safer on your website.
Measure 3: Optimize menu navigation
The easier information is available on a website, the longer customers stay on a website, which leads to Google giving your website preferential treatment. Therefore, you should make sure that all important information for website visitors is not more than one click away. For example, if a customer has to navigate through 3 different menus to find a contact form, this will have a negative effect on your placement on Google.
Action 4: Use keywords
Keywords are one of the most important aspects of SEO. Keywords show Google what content a website contains. For example, if you use the keyword "buy a bike online", Google will conclude that your website is an online shop for bikes. Google then sends users to your website who either search for the exact keyword or use similar keywords.
In this case, "buy a bike online" would be the main keyword that should be used more often. In addition to the main keyword, you can identify secondary keywords that give Google additional information. In the case of the online shop for bicycles, for example, "cheap bicycles", "buy mountain bike", "best bicycle shop" or "children's bicycle" would be secondary keywords.
You should incorporate these keywords as naturally as possible in your text and not use them too often, as Google would otherwise punish this with a lower ranking. You can find keywords easily via search suggestions on Google and professional seo tools.
Measure 5: Optimize meta-title and meta-description
The meta-title is the text that customers click on in a Google search and the meta-description is the paragraph below. These two texts are extremely important for effective SEO. The meta-title should contain the main keyword for which you want to optimize the content on your website. The meta-title should also signal that the content is up-to-date. For this reason, you will see many meta-titles that contain the current year. The meta description is a very short summary of the content of your website. It should contain the most important keywords and give Google users an interesting overview of the content of your website.
Measure 6: Build backlinks
The more often Google finds links to your website online, the better Google evaluates your website and rewards you with a better ranking. Therefore, it should be your goal to place links to your website on other websites. But Google is clever and knows the difference between irrelevant, mostly cheaply bought, backlinks and high-quality links from reputable websites. Therefore, it is more likely to harm you if you receive thousands of backlinks with poor quality. Your focus should be to provide good and informative content for your niche, so that other websites from your industry link to your website for additional information.
Action 7: Internal links
Just like external links, internal links also help you to make it easier and faster for Google to capture the content of your website. As a result, the subpages of your website will appear faster in the search results and your site will rise in the ranking. Internal links, like backlinks, should contain additional information about the topic of the article. The only difference is that internal links link to other subpages of your website. For this it is necessary that you plan your content professionally and connect it to each other.
Measure 8: Visually appealing media
The classic saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words" also applies to SEO measures. By visually representing the content of your website you create a more appealing website that can keep your visitors' attention for longer. In addition, Google considers media as a quality signal and rewards websites with high-quality graphics and images. For appealing and high-quality images, you should produce individual content or use stock image websites that best reflect the ideas of your website. However, you should be careful not to use too many images or ineffective image formats, in order not to unnecessarily extend the loading time of your website.
Measure 9: Optimize your website for mobile devices
A large part of today's traffic on the Internet comes from mobile devices. That's why Google is interested in ensuring that the best ranked websites are optimized for mobile phones and other mobile devices. To optimize your website for mobile viewing, you should design text and menus so that they work properly and are readable on a smaller screen. If Google perceives that mobile users spend a longer time on your website due to better optimization, your ranking on Google will increase.
Measure 10: Provide real value
If your content does not offer your customers added value, it does not matter how well you optimize your website. Therefore, it is very important that your content is interesting and informative to keep your customers interested and to show Google that users find your content helpful. In addition, this increases your chances of relevant backlinks and of course conversions, as customers find your content more informative and thus a professional and trustworthy image is built for your website.