Optimizing your site for search engines is one of the most important things you need to promote your business online. Doing so makes your business discoverable on search engines such as Google.
To make that happen, you will need an SEO-friendly website. This means that your web design should be mobile-responsive, load fast, and naturally incorporate your target keywords in your content.
Do not worry if that sounds overwhelming. That's because we will share seven easy-to-follow steps to create an SEO-friendly website.
Select a reputable web hosting provider
Google has been pretty upfront about speed being one of the top-ranking factors for SEO. Users can be impatient these days and expect a site to load in a matter of seconds.
Sure, you can do some tweaks to make your website load fast. However, using a content delivery network (CDN) and having a reputable web host can help you finish half the battle. That's because your hosting provider's bandwidth can impact your website page load speed.
Make your site's URL user-friendly
To rank well on search engines, your site URL should be user-friendly.
While the URL structure of your site may not be your main priority, it's still vital. So make sure that you simplify your URLs. That way, you'll have unique ones for every page, Don't overlook the finer details. Also, make sure that you try to limit the categories on the link.
Moreover, if you need to separate words in your URL, then see to it that you use hyphens instead of using underscores.
Use a mobile-responsive design
In case you do not know, Google prioritizes your website's mobile version for indexing and ranking. This means that if your website does not look good on mobile, it is less likely to rank well on relevant search results.
That said, we always emphasize the importance of having a mobile-friendly website at Sytian Productions. And by "mobile-friendly," we are not only talking about your website resizing based on screen size.
Being mobile-friendly also means that your website should provide a consistent experience whether on desktop, tablet, or mobile.
Make it easy to navigate
There are a lot of tools that will make sure that users will have a good experience on your site, and they can navigate to different places.
Having your site tested through a tool, or real users, they'll help you find out if there are any errors or wrong links in your site.
If there are any, this can be easily fixed to have a much better experience. It's also helpful that you test your site a couple of times before you launch it live.
Create targeted content for relevant keywords
Keywords are vital to SEO. However, many people still get confused about which keywords they want to use, how much they'll be using, and how they work.
Before creating content for your website, make sure that you look up all the important keywords related to that niche.
Make sure that you only use keywords associated with a particular topic that you're writing about. Don't try to stuff random keywords in your site, as it can only hurt your SEO rankings in the long run.
Similarly, you can also utilize keywords to optimize images as well. By optimizing your images, not just the texts on your site, you can increase your site's search engine rankings.
Optimize header tags
It would help if you also started optimizing header tags to ensure your site will be more SEO-friendly.
Header tags are usually headers that indicate the start of a section. For example, the title of this section is a header.
If you want to create an SEO-friendly site, you need to develop a header structure on your pages, making it easy to read leads. If pages are easy to read and organized, then you'll keep people on your site much longer.
Focus on internal linking
Internal linking lets you build your page authority, letting users easily navigate your site. If you give them appropriate reading options, then they'll be staying on your site much longer.
It also allows search engines to discover new pages on your site and index them. If you want to use internal links on your site, you need to know how to use them properly.
The last thing that you want is to add links on your pages randomly to get those pages indexed. That's why the pages should be relevant to the topic and the anchor text that you're using on the page.
Over to You
Having an SEO-friendly website can help establish your business's online presence. This will allow you to expand your market reach, which can help improve your revenue.
But for that to happen, you need to follow these steps:
- Select a reputable web hosting provider
- Make your website URL user-friendly
- Use a mobile-responsive design
- Make it easy to navigate
- Created targeted content for relevant keywords
- Optimize header tags
- Focus on internal linking
You can produce a website that ranks well on search engines for your target keywords when you follow these steps.
Author Bio
Kenneth Sytian is the CEO of Sytian Productions Web Design Philippines, one of the leading web design services in the Philippines. He has been designing websites and developing web apps for more than a decade. He is considered one of the top influencers in web design and development.
