We would like to write some posts on how to improve SEO rankings. Getting your site to be in the top Google rankings is the goal of every business owner in the world and to do so you have to follow certain rules that are not complicated. And, if they are not complicated, why doesn’t everyone have an excellent SEO strategy? For one reason: SEO is easy, but it is laborious.
Modifying a page’s SEO takes a lot of work. In this message, which will be the first of several, we will cover 12 points to appear on the first pages of Google results.
But, like everything, you can do SEO easily, but an SEO professional will do it better. It will save you time and make you money. An SEO professional is an excellent investment for your company and your future.
Steps to improve your SEO
Install and configure Google Analytics
Google Analytics will provide you with all the information that you need (and even more) about your web page.
Probably you don’t feel like it: is a lot of time, you have to pay a lot of attention, probably you will not get it, but is essential to know who visits your web, where they came from, how they behave, what they visit, etc. This one is the first step and you should not go to the second one if you haven’t finished this one.
Add your website to Google Console
Google Search console can be confused with Google Analytics, but they can’t be more different.
Google Analytics tells you how users see your page, while Google Search Console tells you how Google sees your page. It tells you if it finds errors if it sees duplicate pages, the backlinks it finds, the 404 errors, and so on.
Configure robots.txt
Robots.txt is a file in your domain’s root (I mean: the URL is http://yourdomain.com/robots.txt) and tells the search engines what they must and must not index. Google itself gives instructions for creating the robots.txt file.
It seems complicated, but if you pay attention to reading it you’ll see that it couldn’t be simpler.
Create a sitemap
A sitemap is a tool that helps the Google Search Console index your page. Once created, with any of the tools available on the Internet, it must be sent to Search Console for it to finish indexing it correctly.
Use 301 redirections
For Google, http://yourdomain.com is not the same as http://www.yourdomain.com.
If you don’t redirect one of the domains to the other, Google will divide your positioning between the two so, instead of adding up, it will divide up. Sounds like a disaster for the SEO of your page, huh? Well, don’t leave it just for being lazy.
Use easy URLs
Simple URLs improve your positioning but, in this case, it is something that you should not even care about you should think first about your users (usability) or about yourself:
What do you prefer to see? http://yourdomain.com/id?=233323=233323 or http://yourdomain.com/id?=233323
Don’t you like it much more the second? isn’t it a more comfortable and more pleasant read? Then do the same for your audience. And, besides, you will improve your site’s SEO.
INtroduce the keyword in the URL. Avoid symbols and numbers. Use hyphens not underscores. And the fewer folders the better.
Use canonic URLs
A canonical URL implies indicating to Google that, of two pages with the same content, one is valid and the other is not. Unlike the other rules in this list, this one is not valid for everyone, only for those who, for whatever reason, have duplicate content. Remember what we saw in point 5? duplicate content will not only divide your SEO but also Google will penalize you.
Fix broken links
A broken link is a mistake. It gives users a bad image and search engines don’t like it. There are multiple tools to search for broken links and it is worth checking them from time to time to keep your page’s SEO in good shape.
Improve the speed
People don’t like to wait. Search engines neither. If you want to appear in the first search results you better be fast. That’s not to mention the number of people who can get tired of waiting. Improving the speed of a website is easy to one point and almost impossible from another: reducing the size of images, for example, is easy, but if you have already done everything you could do and still have a website that loads slowly, has not an easy solution.You can use one of the many tools available online to measure the speed of your website.
If you want to learn more about the impact of website performance on conversion rates we recommend you to have a look at this post from Top 10 website hosting blog.
Don’t overuse links
You have likely read in some SEO manual that putting a link improves SEO. And it’s true. One, two, three… but if you start filling everything with links the reading will become uncomfortable and Google will detect strange things, which will damage the SEO of your page.
Autolink yourself
If you link to yourself, Google will find your page through your own page, in other words: it will dedicate more time to your website than it would if you had not been linked. Link yourself. It’s useful for your visitors, who can get more information if you link consistently, and it’s useful for Google, which can find out what topics are related. Of course with common sense and consistency: you can, for example, link related posts on your blog,
Fill Google’s snippet
If you don’t leave the meta description tag blank, what you type is what you will see below the title of your page in the Google result (unless Google goes beyond what you put in and puts anything else around your page, which can also happen). This is not going to improve your ranking, but it can change the number of clicks of users.
Make a description that invites you in, don’t be too long and don’t lie about the content, which is easy to get caught. Don’t you know what the tag is? Then you’re probably using a CMS, WordPress type. The tag is the description of the message that plugins like Yoast SEO will ask for.
If you want your page to be at the top and you don’t have time to do all this, I recommend that you contact Nementio. We have a lot of experience and it doesn’t bore us: we’ll do it for you. With Nementio you are in good hands.
How to improve SEO rankings I: the technical
Improve your SEO II: strictly speaking SEO
How to improve SEO rankings III: four key points
