If you’ve invested in the build of a great website, then you also need to consider how you can optimise it. What does this mean? Well, search engines rank websites according to a range of factors and use a closely guarded – and occasionally changing – algorithm to list websites by relevance according to certain terms.
As a business, you want to ensure that your website appears on the first or second page of search engine results for keywords that make sense to your business. The best way to do this is to invest in SEO support from a freelancer, consultant or agency such as elevateuk.com who offer London SEO services, and the investment will pay itself back rapidly – and then some. However, there are also things that your own in-house web manager can do to keep the site fresh and favourably indexed.
Content is king
This is one of the most used phrases in web development, and it is certainly true when it comes to site rankings. Search engines ‘crawl’ through content to find relevant key words and to assess when content was last updated. Content which is fresh and which contains keywords relevant to their users’ searches will be listed prominently. Good websites invest heavily in good quality, relevant, interesting and up to date content. This also encourages content sharing via social media and further strengthens a websites’ prominence and ranking. It is well worth hiring a professional copywriter to create web ready, impactful content.
Check the basics
Make sure you have a good URL that relates to your business and is easy to memorise and use. Buy .com and .co.uk versions wherever possible. Make sure all of your H1 and H2 titles are rich in relevant keywords and ensure that every page and asset has a meta description and title tag. This may sound like gobbledegook to a non- website developer, but all of these tactics are easy to carry out by the person who updates the website, and it is worth investing in training to ensure that your site administrator understands how to do these things, and does so regularly and consistently.
Check those images
It is also important to check that your images are optimised – that is, saved with titles that are meaningful to the content and relevant to searches. Many websites fail to do this and miss a trick when it comes to easy SEO!
Work that navigation
A good site structure is essential to help your user find the content that they want. Aim for easy navigation that allows the user to find the content they need within just a couple of clicks, and offer different ways of reaching it. For example you would have a menu bar, a search function and promotional buttons on a homepage offering different routes to key content. Consider the site structure very carefully when building your site and use Analytics to adjust and evolve it in the right direction, according to what your users do when they hit the site – and what you want them to do!
What activities are you investing in to optimise your business website?