Google has refined the way website needs to be structured for better results based on user’s search.
Not much has changed through Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird.
This cheat sheet should help you in increasing traffic, engagement, better optimization and also help you with off-page SEO.
1. Improve your website load time
Every second delay in load time of your site causes 7% reduction in conversion rate. If you are into e-commerce, you would be losing customers within 3 seconds. That’s how important your website load time is in conversions.
Here is how you can optimize the load speed of your website:
- Check your website load time on gtmetrix.com
- If your website is taking more than 5 seconds, follow the below steps
- Try using optimized images (use compressed, exact resolution and better hosted images)
- Reduce HTTP requests (javascripts, image files, CSS, etc) by removing unwanted scripts and combine javascripts, refine CSS & inline them, convert images into base64 code.
- Try hosting images and other files on a subdomain
- Use Content Delivery Network (CDN) which will help you optimize the load time and also uses different location based servers to load your files from different sub-domains. One of the best CDN’s we have come across is CloudFlare.
2. Proper usage of meta-tags on all the pages
If you are not using proper meta-tags on your pages, you are not just missing out on optimizing your website, but also misleading search engines. So it is very important that you have proper meta-properties (title, description, keyword and distribution) setup on all the pages.
Here are some of the things you need to follow on all your pages:
- Always select a proper focus keyword that goes with the content.
- Use the focus keyword in your title and have a title that people search on Google (Use Keyword Planner/ Ubersuggest)
- Similarly use the focus keyword in description 1 or 2 times if possible
3. Generate engaging content
A lot of people won’t believe that generating quality content on a regular basis would fetch more results than advertising on a long run. But, it’s true! According to HubSpot, 75% of the people would love to know about companies in a piece of content more than advertisements.
Although generating engaging content on a regular basis is a challenge even for big companies, it is very important that even small companies with limited resources should think of investing money and time.
We have more people landing on our articles than our service page. It has helped us bringing traffic, building credibility and converting a lot of users as prospects.
4. Internal linking and proper structure
Proper usage of links in the page and content helps your Google Page Ranking. If you have a good link structure and internal links on the website, you have better chance of getting all your pages crawled by search engines.
When your users can find links for other pages linked, they will consume more content thereby making it easy for you to sell more than you were set to begin.
Structuring comes into play when you have a lot of links/pages that needs to be presented to users. For example, if you are selling shoes, by using internal links to your blog you can show how to shop for shoes, what size fits them, how to use different shoes to match their personal style, etc. thereby making them not just consume more content from your website, but also showcase your expertise, which according to study gives 9% more chance of selling.
5. Take a peek on competitor’s content
No matter how big you are, there is always a chance that your competitors might take away the action with something more awesome.
Follow your competitors and see what kind of keywords they are using, how they are using it at different places. Check on how they are linking their sites, how they are providing a better experience to their users, what they are doing to kill competition.
Learn how to do competitor analysis.
6. Stay fresh and be ready to follow the trend
Follow trends and offer your users something they cannot refuse. Here is how you can keep up to date and be ready for the trendy may day:
- Keep checking Google Trends – https://trends.google.com/trends/
- Follow trends (hashtags) on twitter – https://www.twitter.com
- Generate time-bound content and share it across social media and other relevant channels.
To make it easier for you, we have put together a checklist for on-page optimization. Download from here: https://goo.gl/4lGp74
Happy Optimizing!
