Why Your Website SEO is Massively Important & How to Improve It
If you have any experience running a website, you’ve most likely come across the term “SEO” at some point. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” – which is an important factor for search engines like Google in deciding how relevant and important your website is compared to other websites that have similar material. The better SEO you have, the higher you will appear in search engine results.
Google gives websites a ranking from 0-10 based on a variety of factors. 0 means the website doesn’t hold much authority, is relatively weak, and may be difficult to find through simple Google searches. 10 is the highest ranking a website can obtain. These highly ranked websites come up immediately in search results. A ranking of 10 is difficult to obtain – even Facebook has a page ranking of 9.
If you run a website and you want customers to find your business easily through any search engine, you need to work on your SEO. SEO can be improved through a variety of methods; I’ll cover the easiest and most effective.
1. Your website needs to run quickly. Large-sized images, videos, or media files that require long loading times will slow down your websites loading time. Try to streamline your website so that you have compressed files of what’s necessary. Faster running websites have a better ranking.
2. Have relevant keywords throughout the website. I’m a photographer serving the Seoul area. I want the word “photographer,” “Seoul,” and “photography” to be commonly used words on my website. The more those words are used, the more Google understands that there is an ample amount of material related to the words I want people searching for via search engines to find to my website.
3. Use “tags.” I’m not talking about the hashtags you see people use on Twitter and Facebook. Tags are keywords related to your webpage. In the control panel of all websites and blogs is an option to add tags to any page. A tag tells the search engine what that page is about. Unique tags are helpful better identify what the material of the page of about. On my “Contact” page, an example of tags would be “contact Seoul photographer” or “contact photographer in Seoul.”
4. Use social media often. I use Google+, Facebook, and Twitter as my primary vehicles for social media. I post my blogs, which I write nearly daily, on those social platforms. Search engines like Google know how many times links to your website are shared, liked, tweeted, and more. Higher amounts of social interaction gives more favor and reputability to a website.
5. Update your website. I blog daily because it keeps my mind and my website fresh. Search engines like when you update your website often - it shows that you care about the material and are willing to maintain it often. Regularly update your website with a blog, preferably with at least 400 words per article – however, more is better, if possible.
6. Backlinks and internal links. Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. If a website which has a higher page rank than your website gives a link to your website, that is a powerful link to have. It’s like a recommendation letter from a person in a higher job position than you. Internal links are links to different pages within your own website. At the end of this article, I will suggest you read more information to develop yourself and I’ll provide a link to a similar article within my website to keep readers interested and active on multiple pages of my website.
Higher traffic, social connectivity, regular use of relevant keywords, amount of time spent on the website, amount of pages visited, efficiency in loading time, and how often updates are the core factors of getting higher SEO. Your SEO will cause your ranking to grow and develop over time. My website used to be unknown on Google. After just 2 months of proper SEO techniques, I found my website on page 4 when a search for “Seoul Photographer” was made. In another 2 months, it wouldn’t be unexpected to see myself on the second page of Google results. It’s my hope to be at the top of the organic search results for “Seoul Photographer” in just 4 months.
Having a top ranking website is huge for getting traffic to your website naturally. Many people pay to have their advertisements shown at the top of Google searches and it can quickly get expensive. Websites at the top tend to stay at the top because they have so much traffic that holds them in a popular position. Take care of your website, and you’ll be flooded with traffic and potential business.
A word of warning~ There are ways that you can try to “cheat” the system to get to the top. Some people pay companies to get a ridiculously large amount of backlinks to their website to artificially seem more popular. Google is advanced and knows which website networks are trying to pull strings. If you try to pay to manipulate the search results, your website may get penalized, which could ultimately get you blacklisted in the worst-case scenario. Avoid cheating at all costs~
Best of luck to your business, website, and the building of your SEO. To read more about the benefits of daily blogging, please read Why Every Artist Should Blog.
