Tip #1: The Domain Name
The very first thing you should do if you want to optimize your website for Google is do some keyword research. The keyword research that you do will trickle down towards all of the rest of the steps so it’s an important step.
There are a few keyword research tools out there but the one that is used the most is owned by Google and is known as the Keyword Planner tool. It is a tool that Google created for their customers who use Adwords for advertising. You do have to sign up for an Adwords account and link a credit card to use it, but you are able to use it for free.
While doing keyword research look for search terms that are related to what you want to be found for, have a decent amount of monthly searches and are not too high competition.
Once you’ve found your match, you should attempt to purchase a domain which closely matches the search term. The domain name itself is important to Google in regards to categorizing what your website is actually about and helps you INCREDIBLY when it comes to ranking for that term.
If you are not able to secure the domain of your choice, than most people just go with something related to their business name.
Important Things To Pay Attention To When Buying A Domain Name
- The Shorter The Better
- Opt For a .Com
- Separating Words With Hyphens Makes Your Site Look Spammy To Google
Tip #2: Page Titles
Your page titles are very important when it comes to letting Google know what each individual page is about. Make sure each page has a unique title that includes the keyword phrases that the page itself is attempting to target.
If you are a well known brand, it helps to include your company name at the front of the page title. You can then separate the company name from the title itself with a “pipe” character, hyphen or any other symbol for stylization purposes.
If your company is not so well known you can add it at the end of the title if you wish. Again make sure to separate the title itself from your company name to avoid confusion.
Tip #3: The Content
Optimizing your content is known as “on page optimization”. There are many factors to on page optimization and they include:
- Use The Keyword In the Page Headings In The Content Of The Page
- Use The Keyword In The “alt” Tag On At Least One Image On The Page
- Use the Keyword In The Page Content, But Be Careful To Make It Natural And Don’t Overdo It!
On top of making sure your keyword is scattered throughout your content, also make sure that the actual content itself is interesting and worth reading to potential visitors. This leads us into the next tip!
Tip #4: Links
Links coming in to your website from other domains are known as “inbound links” and building these links is called “off page optimization”. In order to get other websites to link to you you may:
- Write Quality Content That People Want To Link To
- Partner With Websites In Your Niche
- Write Guest Blogs On Related Websites
- Write Press Releases
- Get Your Content Shared On Social Media
Tip #5: Indexing
This tip is slightly technical however you can get through this with a bit of Googling. Your website will need to have a “XML Sitemap”. This is a file which lists all of the pages on your website.
You can then sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap there. This step is important because you want Google to index all of the pages on your website.
You also want to make sure that there are no duplicate content issues. For example, if your website has 60 pages and Google thinks that you have 25 then there is obviously an issue there in terms of Google indexing your website.
In the same scenario, if Google believes that your website has 120 pages, than this means that you have some duplicate content issues.
Getting this settled out with Google is a great step to take in regard to optimizing your website.
Conclusion
In conclusion, make sure that your website has great content that people actually want to visit and always keep Google in the back of your mind. The trick is simply to make your website easy for Google to deal with and cool enough for visitors to link to your content and come back for more!
As always thank you for reading and make sure to leave your questions, comments and concerns below in the comment box!