Making your site attractive to search engines is key to driving new visitors. Here are some best practices for improving SEO.
Make use of meta descriptions
Most people use search engines to find an answer to a question, especially with the growth of mobile and voice search. Meta descriptions are the lines of text that follow a search result link. Including keywords in the meta description can improve click-through rates to your site.
Improve your site’s user experience
Since 2018, Google has given preference to websites that load quickly on a mobile phone when ranking search results. This means that websites that offer a quality user experience for mobile will come out on top. The main factors to consider are page loading speed and mobile responsiveness.
Google offers a PageSpeed Insights tool and Mobile-friendly Test page to test your website.
Make use of HTTPS and SSL certificates
Given the prevalence of phishing and hoax sites that take sensitive information from users, search engines give preference to sites that are verified and secure. If a site is not secure, browsers will show a warning popup or separate page before letting users view your landing page. This discourages users from visiting your site.
Most hosting and domain companies offer SSL certificates that are easy to install on your site and increase site security. Even if your site doesn’t take credit cards or addresses, installing an SSL and enabling HTTPS gives visitors peace of mind.
Another related best practice is to add “https://” to all links and images on each page.
Submit your sitemap to search engines
A sitemap shows all the pages and categories that are on your site. If you’re launching a website, submitting a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools can help get your pages in search results sooner.
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Implementing these best practices on your site will help you improve your site’s SEO. Pro tip: if your site is hosted on WordPress, plugins such as Yoast SEO can help you do many of the above, including creating featured snippets, offering SEO advice as you write content for your site, and automatically creating a sitemap to submit to search engines.
Want help hosting your site on WordPress? Or just want help improving your site’s SEO? We can help. Contact us for a consultation and get straightforward recommendations from our team of professionals.
