10 Actions to Optimize Your SEO Today
If you're a business owner looking to improve your SEO in the Hudson Valley, you're in luck. In this blog post, we will discuss 10 simple actions that you can take today to start optimizing your small business website. These tips are easy to follow and will help improve your business ranking on search engines like Google. So without further ado, let's get started!
1. Identify and fix broken links: Having broken links on your website can hurt your SEO ranking, so it’s important to regularly check for any errors or dead links. You can use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl your website and detect any broken links that need to be fixed.
2. Update your content regularly: Search engines love fresh content, so make sure to update your website with new and relevant information on a regular basis. You can also include keywords in your content to help boost your SEO ranking. Check out our Instagram account here for other business tools that are easy to use and help your SEO ranking.
3. Optimize page titles and meta descriptions: Your page titles and meta descriptions should be concise and keyword-rich to give search engines a better understanding of your content. Be sure to place your location in the descriptions if your target customers are only within a geographic radius. For example: SEO help for Hudson Valley Business Owners. It’s also important to include the keyword in the title and meta description for each page.
4. Create an XML sitemap: An XML sitemap is a list of all the pages on your website that can be crawled by search engines. Creating one helps search engines understand your site structure and more easily index your pages. According to Yoast, a tool that interfaces with Wordpress, “A good XML sitemap acts as a roadmap of your website that leads Google to all your important pages, allowing Google to find your essential pages quickly, even if your internal linking isn't perfect.”
5. Submit your website to search engines: To ensure maximum visibility, submit your website to popular search engines such as Google and Bing. You can do this by using a tool like Search Console or using the “Submit URL” options on both search engines. You also want to ensure you are leveraging every free search engine tool you can. Since 97% of people use Google when they search, ensure your business has a Google My Business page listed. Check out our Instagram post for more information on GMB.
6. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly: With more people accessing the web from their phones, it’s important that your website is optimized for mobile devices. Use a tool like Mobile-Friendly Test to make sure your website is up to speed with today’s standards.
7. Optimize images: Images play a huge role in SEO, so make sure to use descriptive titles, alt text, and captions for all images on your website. This will help search engines understand what the image is about and how it relates to your content. A further step to take is to ensure that all your images are saved to your device prior to uploading to your site with the appropriate descriptive title instead of “IMG_2290.”
8. Use internal linking: Linking between pages on your website helps search engine spiders better understand the structure of your website and increases its visibility. Make sure to link to relevant pages whenever possible and avoid linking to irrelevant ones. For example, you want to link to another page that has helpful content to your reader: if you like this blog post, you may want to read more about digital business tips for business owners here.
9. Research keywords: Identifying the best keywords for your website is essential for SEO success. Do keyword research to find out which words are most likely to bring in organic traffic and use them throughout your content. There are several tools you can use like Semrush, Google Search Console, Google Trends, or you can simply look up competitor pages and see which keywords they use to get some inspiration on content you can create to compete with other sites’ web traffic. More in-depth research on keywords here.
10. Track your progress: Last but not least, track your SEO progress to see if your efforts are paying off. You can use a tool like Google Analytics to monitor your rankings and traffic over time. Be sure to omit IP addresses that you own so your analytics aren’t skewed with vanity numbers.
By taking these 10 simple steps today, you'll be well on your way to improving your website's SEO ranking! Let us know if this helped, and be sure to subscribe to our Community so you receive updates when we post helpful business tips for Hudson Valley business owners!
