5 Ways To Improve Your Website’s SEO
Search Engine Optimisation, to put it simply, helps potential customers find your website. It involves modifying your website's content so that it’s both easy to find and navigate, promoting an accessible and enjoyable user experience.
Learning how to properly optimise your website so that it ranks higher on search engine results pages can feel a little intimidating, but the many benefits are well worth the behind-the-scenes process.
Ranking higher on Google exposes your website to a whole new selection of potential customers - in turn, boosting your leads and sales. To do so, it’s simply a case of adhering to Google’s requirements and having your very own SEO strategy.
Not sure where to get started? Not to worry. We’ve compiled our top five tips for improving your website’s SEO so that you can reap the benefits of ranking highly on the results page and attracting those extra clicks.
1. Understanding your SEO analytics
Utilising Google Analytics is a great first move for any company wanting to improve its SEO. Google Analytics is a data-driven tool, that can help you understand:
● Who is visiting your website
● Your current search engine ranking
● How your campaigns are performing
Google Analytics will show you exactly what’s working on your website, and what isn’t. It’ll help you make fully-informed decisions as to what type of content to keep on your pages, and what to implement in the future. But how?
Here are the top three metrics on Google Analytics that you should consider when improving your SEO:
● Average time on page: this tells you exactly how long visitors spend looking at each page on your website. This can show you if a page is truly valuable or not. If there’s a page that users spend significantly less time on, it might indicate that its content doesn’t appeal to your audience.
● Traffic Sources: this shows you which sources are bringing traffic to your site. This metric is particularly helpful as it can show you which social media channels are performing best for your brand - for example, if you’re getting the most traffic from Instagram, this will be where most of your audience is seeing your brand, or perhaps a social campaign may be performing particularly well.
● Bounce rate: this shows you how many users leave a page, without visiting anything else on the site. If your bounce rate is high (over 65%), then you might want to make some changes to the content on that page.
2. Edit your URLs and meta descriptions
The next step involves editing your website URLs and meta descriptions (the small description of your website that appears in the search engine results below your URL). They both play a crucial role in helping search engines understand your content so that they can show it to your target audience.
The trick is to be concise and clear, whilst including as many targeted keywords as possible. Short but sweet is the way forward!
A well-written meta description could attract more visitors to your page. If your link is clicked on frequently enough, Google will recognise that your content is reliable and well-liked, and will give you a handy boost in its result page rankings.
3. Go back to basics: website architecture
Having a great website isn’t just about aesthetics - you need to have a strong foundation. This includes the structure of your website - your menu display, your pages, and the internal links users can click to navigate between each one.
A well-organised site creates an easy, accessible user experience. Visitors should be able to find their way around your website (e.g. your products and answers to any questions they may have) with ease. Google favours well-structured websites and will reward great website architecture with site links.
Site links show your websites’ main page links beneath the usual website title and meta description, meaning visitors can click on the page they need right away. For example, they can click your ‘Contact Us’ page directly from the results page.
Site links come with huge benefits. Studies have shown that having site links has been linked with improved brand reputation and website traffic. It’s not something you can request from Google - Google’s algorithm automatically assigns site links to websites with strong architecture.
To assess your own website structure, put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Visit your own site as a user would and experience their journey for yourself. You’ll soon pick up on how easy it is to navigate your website and anything you think needs changing.
If you’re unsure where to start, here are a few suggestions:
● Prioritise making a strong main menu so that users can navigate easily through the whole site.
● Include internal links to pages on your own website within any blog posts to allow readers to easily access relevant pages.
● Include a final call-to-action statement in your footer to encourage visitors to contact or buy from you.
4. Use relevant images and alt text
Using images helps Google better understand the purpose of your website and is a great way to make your website more accessible. One way to do this is to use Alt text - this should describe the image in detail and provide context on how it relates to your pages’ content. The more specific you are, the higher your content will be ranked by Google.
It also improves your website accessibility by enabling screen readers to read the information about on-page images for those who are visually impaired or otherwise unable to view the images. Win-win!
5. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
A whopping 60% of Google searches come from mobile devices, so it’s essential that your website is mobile-friendly. The best way to check if your website is mobile-friendly is to use Google’s mobile page testing tool.
Responsive design is the best way forward. This is an approach to website design that allows your pages to render well on any device a user chooses to use - mobile, computer, laptop or tablet. Without responsive design, users won’t be unable to read the information on your website and you could lose out on potential customers.
How can I improve my website’s SEO?
It’s not possible to change your SEO ranking overnight, but making small adjustments over time can make a world of difference to your website’s ranking. Monitoring Google Analytics and prioritising the user experience are the best first steps to take.
If you’re looking for more guidance on how to improve your SEO, look no further. At the Underdog Agency, we offer a data-driven Digital Performance Audit to help you give your Digital marketing strategy a boost.
We can help you understand:
● How your website is currently performing
● Where you are ranking within Google
● How you’re performing compared to your competitors
● What you can do to leverage social media to your advantage.
Our audits will provide you with the technical information you need to improve your website, in a simple, easy-to-understand format. You’ll walk away with a clear guide to improving your website traffic, leads and sales.
To check out our Basic and Premium SEO packages, you can visit our website here. If you have any questions, get in touch by filling in a short form, or dropping us an email at hello@theunderdogagency.co.uk. We’ll always be there to lend a hand throughout your digital marketing journey.
