SEO optimization: 6 steps to simply optimize your site
Many people think that SEO is a difficult discipline, but that is not true.
THE basic SEO optimizations are very easy to implement and sometimes that’s all you need to grow your visibility quickly.
If you are looking for a simple guide with effective SEO tipsyou are on the right article, read the following!
SEO optimization: what is it? ?
SEO optimization or natural referencing is the practice of increasing the number and quality of visitors to a website by improving the ranking in the algorithmic results of search engines.
Studies show that websites on the first page of Google receive almost 95% of clicks, and results that appear higher on the page receive a much higher click-through rate (CTR), and more traffic.
The SEO optimization process will therefore be to modify your current content to make it more SEO-friendly and to be ranked higher in order to attract more qualified visitors.
1. Modify titles, URLs and descriptions for good SEO optimization
This is probably one of the tips you’ll find everywhere, but it’s still very consistent.
Good page optimization includes well-optimized titles, URL and description.
Always keep the following in mind when writing:
- A unique and meaningful title
- A catchy description
- A well-formatted and short URL
Consider using your main keyword as well as its variations in different strategic placements.
Review your website using this way of thinking and if there is room for improvement in your titles and descriptions, this is your first priority and an important first step to achieving higher rankings because the result is immediate (or almost).
You may also like: How to reference your site on Google News?
2. Providing Recent Content Helps SEO
There freshness of content is important for a good SEO optimization. Part of the reason you have a website or blog is to provide content to grow an audience, keep your current readers happy, and gain new customers.
By content, we mean anything from articles, videos, infographics, slideshows, music, comments, reviews, or whatever is tailored to your niche.
If your content is static, old, or outdated, chances are your visitors will leave quickly and never return.
What is your first reaction when you visit a site whose content is old (more than 2 years)?
This is exactly the same for users who visit your website.
A few years ago we used to tell our clients that updating was not a very important SEO factor but that has changed due to competition.
There is immense competition (which varies) in every keyword you search for and the websites that have the most useful and fresh content, have more chances to win the race for the top 3.
Does this mean you need to post new content every day?
Not necessarily.
Your publishing strategy also depends on a number of other factors where you can definitely optimize for SEO.
3. Improve site loading time
Page speed is an important ranking factor.
If this is the first time you are reading that page speed is important for SEO, then soon after reading this post you should do whatever is necessary to improve your website loading time.
If you’ve already read about this and haven’t done anything about it yet, you’re making a big mistake.
Let’s simply explain the importance of optimizing the speed of your site.
The loading speed is a natural SEO factor.
If you have two similar websites and one is faster than the other, you can expect it to also rank higher (provided all other things are equal).
Faster websites generate on average more conversions.
This means more sales, more subscribers and more clicks on your ads (if you use Adsense for example).
A faster site also generates more page views.
When a website loads quickly, users are likely to visit more than one page before they leave.
How can you improve your website speed?
I know it’s not an easy task, especially if you’re not technical, but it’s important to manage page speed right away in order to fully optimize your site’s SEO.
When working on our clients’ sites, page speed is one of the first things we address and the results in terms of conversions are sometimes immediate.
If you can’t afford to hire an SEO specialist or developer to make your website load faster, you can start by doing the following:
- Reduce the weight of your images
- Delete unnecessary JavaScript files
- Minimize server requests
- Switch to a faster host
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) service
- Minify your Javascript and CSS resources
4. Switch to mobile-friendly for better SEO optimization
A mobile-friendly site is a essential SEO optimization Today.
There are many reasons why your site should be mobile-friendly.
First and foremost is the fact that most of your users come from mobile.
For example, 60% of the traffic generated on LeDigitalizeur comes from mobile.
If you consult your Google Analytics reports and in particular the “Mobile Overview” report (under audience / mobile), you will see that the share of mobile is growing.
This means that if your site is not optimized for mobile, these people will leave your website and probably never come back.
Second, Google introduced a “mobile-first index,” which is used to indexing mobile sites.
This mobile-first index is being deployed gradually and allows people who have optimized their site to benefit from a better ranking.
If your site is not mobile friendly, it will not be included in the index, which means a considerable drop in SEO traffic.
How to make your site mobile-friendly?
- Test your website with Google Mobile Friendly Test tool and try to implement their recommendations to make your site mobile-friendly.
- Make sure the content you show to mobile users is the same (or very close) as what you have on your Desktop site.
- Test your website with Google mobile speed test. I mentioned above that speed is important for SEO, but for mobile websites it is also crucial. Measure the time it takes to load your pages on normal mobile connections (3G) and take all necessary steps to improve the speed as much as possible.
5. Use SEO optimization tools for webmasters
Not using an SEO optimization tool is like driving with your eyes closed.
If you haven’t done so yet, create a Google Search Console account for example.
Once you register and have done some basic configurations, you will be notified if there is a problem with your site and you will also start to be able to analyze interesting facts about your website like:
- Number of pages indexed
- Number of inbound links
- Search queries
- 404 errors
- Number of internal links
6. An overhaul of existing content allows for great SEO optimization
An old article has potential but no longer ranks page 1? No worries, it’s a very good sign for your SEO. After a redesign, your article will also have a makeover in the ranking!
The lifespan of an item is approximately 2 years.
Take all of your items that were doing well at the time and are 2 years or older and give them an overhaul.
This will give you an almost immediate boost.
Of course, these SEO optimizations will influence your natural referencing in general but also your local referencing.