In today’s online world, having a prominent web presence can make or break your company. The most important key in building your online presence is to increase your website’s rankings in website searches. Following is a list of nine key strategies and search engine optimization (SEO) tools to help your website rank higher in online searches.
1. Provide Quality Content On Your Website
One of the most important elements in building your online presence is providing superior content. Give people a reason to use your site instead of another site, and give them a reason to return to your site. Search engines note how long site visitors stay on a given page. If visitors come to your site and stay for an extended period of time, indicating to the search engine that they have actually used your site, your site will move up in search rankings.
2. Research The Terms That Your Targeted Audience Will Likely Search, And Use Them
Once you have developed quality content for your site, you need to make sure you use important keywords for the search engine to find. Research keywords that your targeted audience is likely to use in their searches. For example, if your website is about Traditional Chinese Medicine, your site may not rank highly on search engines because people may search for “natural medicine” or “alternative medicine”. A variety of website SEO tools such as Moz.com or Google AdWords can help you conduct this research. Once you discover what the most important keywords are for your web content, try to include those words a sensible amount of times on the pages.
3. Ensure Your Site Adapts To Mobile Users
Many web users access sites on their mobile devices. Websites usually have to be intentionally structured to adapt to mobile platforms, or the site creator has to make a separate version of the site specifically for mobile devices. It is generally better to make your site adaptable to various platforms. Regardless of the route you choose, search engines prefer sites that provide a pleasant user experience. If a user cannot easily navigate your site on a mobile device, your site will rank lower on web searches.
4. Use Titles In Your HTML Code
Make sure that every page of your website has a descriptive title in the HTML code. Your code for every page should look something like, “Natural Medicine Techniques”, and “Find a Natural Medicine Doctor”. Make sure your page titles are not “About” or “History”. The more specific and descriptive your titles are, the easier it is for search engines to find your site.
5. Focus On The Structure Of Your Content
Using structured data allows search engines to navigate and display your site more efficiently. The text-based level of structured data is called structured data markup. You can most easily write this script in JSON-LD format using schema.org vocabulary. For more information on how to use structured data, visit https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data.
6. Make Sure Your Site Is Trustworthy
Ensure that your site provides accurate and trustworthy information. Search engines check for the authority for your site through a variety of means. If your site is linked to quality sites, receives positive reviews and feedback, and receives many reputable social references, your site will be perceived as more authoritative. The more authoritative and trustworthy your site is, the higher your site will rank in website searches.
7. Build Quality Links
The number and the quality of links your site is included in is one of the most important factors in website search rankings. Every time another site includes your website in a link, your site receives a recommendation. The quality of the websites matter, although all links count in the algorithms that search engines use to rank websites. Major websites and websites that are relevant to your subject count more than other websites. The word that is used in the link is also relevant to search engines. For example, if the link to your site is under the term “Natural Medicine”, this helps the search engine identify your site as a natural medicine site.
8. Avoid Making Your Site “Top Heavy”
A “top heavy” site is a website that features several ads at the top of the page, making it difficult for users to find the website’s content. This adversely affects the user’s experience. In 2012, Google developed an algorithm to identify sites that are “top heavy” with ads and place them lower in search engine rankings.
9. Account For The Country In Which You And Your Target Audience Are Located
Search engines usually only show results that are relevant for the country and even local area in which the user is located. If you develop your site in the United States, but you want to sell a product internationally, you need to make sure that your site is accessible to users in multiple countries. On the contrary, if you provide services exclusively in Houston, TX, there are ways to increase your search engine rankings among users in Houston. There are a variety of website SEO tools that can help you make these adjustments. Your most important step is identifying your target audience.
The proper use of website SEO tools and strategies is crucial in establishing and building your online presence. The proper implementation of the nine strategies can help your website rank higher in website searches.