As Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultants, a common question that comes up from the companies we work with is: "is our website optimized for SEO?" This guide addresses the most important aspects website SEO optimization and if implemented correctly can have a massive impact on your website's search engine ranking.
The title tag is the text that appears in the browser tab and lets search engines like Google know what your web page is about.
The title tag is also the most prominent text search engines use when displaying your website's listing in the search results:
Needless to say, title tags are vital to your website's SEO; they tell Google how to index the page and simultaneously let the searcher know if the content is relevant to them.
Have your web developer update this in the head section of your website's HTML code:
Meta descriptions, while not as important in search engine rankings, are extremely important in getting users to click through from the search engine results page to your website.
Search engines (in many cases) use your site's meta description in the text below the title of the search result:
Meta descriptions should use keywords wisely, but more importantly they should include a compelling description that will entice the user to click.
Have your web developer update this in the head section of your website's HTML code:
HTML headings define the structure of your content to both the reader and the search engines. The <h1> tag defines the most important heading while <h6> defines the least important heading.
When Google is deciding what your website content is about, it looks at heading tags as the most important and relevant text on the page. We can use this to our advantage by adding important keywords to the page headings so Google is more likely to rank the page for those keywords.
In the example below, popular financial advice website nerdwallet.com is doing a good job optimizing their website content for SEO by using important keywords in their <h1> heading tag and using <h2> tags for additional headings of lesser importance:
Internal linking refers to a link on a page that points to another page within your website.
Internal linking is important because it helps strengthen those keywords internally for those pages, it allows users (and search engines) to navigate through the website, and it tells the search engines that the page is relevant for that keyword phrase.
When internally linking page content, use descriptive, keyword rich anchor text. For example, a link pointing to a page about "financial management" should favor the anchor text: “learn more about financial management,” over “Click here”.
Alt tags define the description of the images on your website.
Using alt tags is another good opportunity to add keywords to your site and they’re great for user accessibility too. If someone is using a screen reader to access your site, they'll be able to hear what that image is about if they can't see it.
Include keyword phrases in image alt tags, if possible, (but don’t overdo it) and image filenames should be SEO friendly which can improve your website’s ranking for image searches.
Page speed refers to the time it takes to fully display your web page's content and is one of the signals used by Google's algorithm to rank pages.
Page speed is also important to user experience as web pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates, lower average time on page and have also been shown to negatively affect conversions.
You can evaluate your site's page speed using Google's PageSpeed Insights tool which analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster.
Use Gzip, a software application for file compression, to reduce the size of your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files that are larger than 150 bytes.
For images, compress them in a program like Photoshop where you can retain control over image quality.
By optimizing your code (including removing spaces, commas, and other unnecessary characters), you can dramatically increase your page speed. Also remove code comments, formatting, and unused code. Google recommends using CSSNano and UglifyJS.
Each time a page redirects to another page, your visitor faces additional time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete.
Browsers have to build a DOM tree by parsing HTML before they can render a page. If your browser encounters a script during this process, it has to stop and execute it before it can continue. Google suggests avoiding and minimizing the use of blocking JavaScript.
Browsers cache a lot of information (stylesheets, images, JavaScript files, and more) so that when a visitor comes back to your site, the browser doesn't have to reload the entire page. Use a tool like YSlow to see if you already have an expiration date set for your cache. Then set your "expires" header for how long you want that information to be cached. Google has more information about leveraging caching here.
Your server response time is affected by the amount of traffic you receive, the resources each page uses, the software your server uses, and the hosting solution you use. To improve your server response time, look for performance bottlenecks like slow database queries, slow routing, or a lack of adequate memory and fix them. The optimal server response time is under 200ms. Learn more about optimizing your time to first byte.
Content distribution networks (CDNs), also called content delivery networks, are networks of servers that are used to distribute the load of delivering content. Essentially, copies of your site are stored at multiple, geographically diverse data centers so that users have faster and more reliable access to your site.
Be sure that your images are no larger than they need to be, that they are in the right file format (PNGs are generally better for graphics while JPEGs are generally better for photographs) and that they are compressed for the web.
A well-crafted URL provides both humans and search engines an easy-to-understand indication of what the destination page will be about.
Favor a url like the one below which makes clear where the user is within your website and what your page's content is about:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/how-to-refinance-your-mortgage/
Keep your audience in mind: you are writing website content for people...and then for search engines — not vice versa.
I hope this content was helpful and wish you all the very best on your website SEO optimization journey!
And if you're in need of help with anything related to SEO, lead generation, website optimization and that sorta thing, head over to our Work With Us page to request a free consultation with an SEO expert!