Nowadays, if you want to get your brand out in front of people, building a website is a must. However simply being online is not quite enough, you also need to take the steps to make sure that your site is properly optimized so that search engines can index and rank your content in the search landscape.
What does it mean to have an optimized website? There are many factors when it comes to SEO optimization, such as technical and on page optimizations, and all are important for your website’s overall quality and health. However, here are 5 basic but major items you can check on a page by page level to determine if your website is properly optimized for SEO.
1. Page Speed
Running your website through a free tool like Lighthouse or GTMetrix can give you a lot of information on what aspects of your website can be affecting page speed such as unused JavaScript or images that need to be resized or compressed. A lot of these fixes can be implemented with the help of your web development team or whoever built your website. A website’s page speed and responsiveness has become an increasingly important ranking factor following Google’s core web vitals update in May 2021 which prioritizes pages that provide a good page experience in search results.
2. Mobile Optimization
As of Google’s mobile first indexing update, in addition to ranking pages with the best mobile experience at the top of the search landscape, Google also now removes desktop-only sites from their indexing library. Be sure to check with your web development team that your website is responsive and that your visual content is loading and appearing as it should be on the mobile version of your site. You can utilize Google Search Console to check your site’s mobile friendly score.
3. Keyword Strategy
A key component of a website that is properly optimized for SEO is keyword implementation. Once you establish what your priority keywords are for your webpage, be sure to make sure that they are present in your page title, headers (especially your h1), throughout your body content as well as in your meta description (this is not a ranking factor but could help improve your click through rate). A well-rounded keyword strategy is one of the most important aspects of website optimization.
4. Content
Content is king when it comes to digital marketing. Ensuring that your site is providing quality content to search users by completing competitive content analysis and delivering twice the value is a surefire way to improve your page experience and organic rankings. Follow the E-A-T guidelines when creating valuable content for your website and be sure to check out our guide to how to incorporate search intent in your body content for more key tips in content creation and optimization.
5. URLs
Make sure all URLs, especially internal, on your site are working properly and that none are sending users to a 404 page. The presence of broken links can hurt your page’s rankings in Google, not to mention contribute to a frustrating user experience for your target audience. On the chance that a user is directed to the not found page on your site, be sure to create a helpful 404 page that guides users to where they can find what they might be looking for such as four helpful links from your main navigation. Moz.com offers a comprehensive list of free SEO tools that can help you crawl your site and locate broken links.
Make the most out of your investment into creating a site for your business by keeping up to date with Google’s algorithm updates and making sure your webpages are optimized to their fullest potential. Schedule a consultation with our team of specialists if you’re interested in learning more about our integrated digital marketing service offerings.