SEO terms to understand.

Crafting the perfect web-page can be an ongoing project as your business and website grow. Consumers don’t spend time on a website if it can’t provide them with the information they need within about 4 seconds*. However, when you consider that 30%* of consumers use a company’s website search function, it’s clear that you need to be sure that they are finding what they need.

There are quite a few factors which contribute towards on-page SEO. If you use a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, you’re in luck as it will have many of the following features built in to help your website reach full SEO potential. I’ve broken down these tasks into separate steps which you can take to ensure your web-pages are optimized:

• Include keywords in your Title tag. The closer the keyword is to the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it carries with search engines like Google.
• Use <h1> headers for titles. WordPress automatically includes this feature which adds importance to your webpage. It also helps your webpage appear neater.
• Optimize your website’s design & performance. Google requires websites to be mobile-friendly, so make sure your’s looks good on multiple devices and platforms.
• Media utilization is key, as it helps enhance understanding, increase time spent on the website, and decrease your bounce rate. Name image files with keywords.

Learn what people are searching for.

• Link to external websites. Outbound linking notifies Google of your page’s topic, and can lead to you outranking websites that don’t do this important step.
• In addition to outbound links, be sure to link to internal pages as well, as it can help keep readers on your website.
• Post engaging content! If you want customers and readers to stay on your web-page then produce content that is interesting and grabs their attention. Besides, longer content tends to rank higher in Google’s search results.
• Social Media should be used to boost your content. Don’t be afraid to promote your webpage. Getting involved with the local community is a crucial part of understanding your audience and delivering them the latest news and developments.

Be sure to share your content!

If you follow those eight steps, you’ll be well on your way to an optimized webpage. Be sure to analyze your bounce rate, click through rate, and Google SERP findings to alter your content as necessary. Review on a quarterly or bi-annual time frame to ensure maintained optimization.

Click here to read about how mobile advertising affects your business. If you’d like to share tips of your own, feel free to leave them in a comment below. And make sure to check back for continued updates related to small business SEO.

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Sources:
https://moz.com/blog/on-site-search
http://backlinko.com/on-page-seo
http://www.serped.com/guide-to-indexing-your-site/1766

-Mitchell S