SEO seems to be an elusive, ever-changing puzzle, which is true to some extent since the algorithms used by search engines are constantly changing. However, the basic rules of search engine optimization (SEO) remain the same, and we’re going to use these to go through each step of creating and boosting content for your Seattle SEO site.
You can boost your site’s content with the following:
Creating Quality Content
Writing authentic, unique, and information-rich articles and posts is what search engines favor. Why? Because that’s what people (or your target audience) will respond to, so it’s what search engines promote Most of the online content these days is just existing content being recycled, which is not really useful. How do you create quality content? Here’s how:
- Title/headline should be clear and easy to understand –the important thing when writing content is that you are able to communicate to people what they’re about to read (encouraging them to read more is a plus!). Think about keywords, but make sure they sound natural and help explain your content.
- Use hadings that tell the story –headings help your audience skim a longer article and help search engines in detecting major topics on your website. After writing the article, go back and take a look at the headline and headings. Do they help promote and highlight the story?
- Use specific image titles, captions, and alt text –the main purpose of image titles, caption and alt text is to guide visitors into understanding the images when they fail to load, or if they use a site reader. Search engines also use alt text to understand what image was posted so they can display it in image search results. Only use keywords if they can really help explain, and remember to keep your descriptions, natural, and as accurate as possible.
- Use categories and tags to organize content –tags and categories are used in WordPress to organize content for your audience. They both make it easier for readers to browse through the topics that pique their interest. Categories create large groupings of your posts, whereas tags provide a description of specific details within these posts.
Since search engines promote valuable, easy-to-navigate content more, if you organize your Seattle SEO categories and tags to help readers easily find information, they will be instantly optimized for SEO.
Using Relevant Keywords
- Be Natural –use words people use when talking about your topic—the ones that are appropriate for your business, your audience, and your writing style. Use the words your audience can relate to. If you aren’t sure what words people use, try to search on forums or online tools to search and compare trending words. Check out Rank Tracker, Google Trends, KWFinder, and Free Keyword Tool.
A word to the wise: avoid trying to keyword-stuff. If your words seem unnatural, it may put off your readers and search engines won’t like it as well. Do a quick search on Google to find what keywords sound natural and are popular.
- Use descriptive words with your website name and taglines –Everything, and I mean everything, from your website name to the tagline, is searchable. Adding keywords can help, especially if your website’s domain name doesn’t have any keywords.
Quality Links
- Using Customized Permalinks –WordPress has an option where you can decide how your permalinks are generated. Go under Settings > Permalinks and program how you want URLs to include information such as your post name. Customizing the URLs in this manner (using your post name) makes it easy to search your URLs. There’s an option to completely customize them as well. Just a bit of advice though: if you have existing pages that are already generating traffic, changing those URLs now can significantly affect your SEO ranking.
- Create well-thought out internal linking –internal links take people from page to page within your website. Think of it as something similar to a secret passage from the living room to your bedroom. You can include internal links within an article or post, or on the side or bottom. Putting a link within an article is the common practice, but since they can interrupt your reader, only use relevant and intentional internal links. Make sure the links are in anchor text (visible clickable text) as well.
You can link straight from the words on your article on your website that you wrote about your topic. Then, at the bottom of your article, you can encourage people to check out the link for more information about it.
- Build credible external linking –external links can either be inbound (links from other websites to your site) or outbound (links from your site to other sites). It’s a good idea to have both so long as you are linking to and being linked from credible, appropriate websites.
It’s good to have inbound links as long as the website you are linking to creates good quality content. If you want to grow your inbound links, think about where your content could be considered a valuable asset, then reach out to those websites, brands, and bloggers. If you have to reach out to them, do it with a personal, well-thought out message.
Outbound links are used to provide readers with additional information and/or references regarding your content. Try not to add undisclosed paid ad links or any link that is not useful or helpful to your readers.
Mobile Responsiveness
- Choose a Responsive Theme –a responsive theme adjusts your website according to screen sizes so visitors who are checking your website using a phone or tablet can automatically view your full content in a user-friendly, and easily readable format. This also means that your visitors will be able to recall your content and know where to find things regardless of what device they use. If it’s hard for visitors to navigate through your website on their mobile devices (phone or tablet), they’ll immediately leave and bounce right back to their search results. And because search engines promote useful and user-friendly websites with relevant content, if users bounce quickly from your website, the search engine will make note of that and this can affect your website ranking significantly.
