How to improve your website SEO in 5 minutes
Improve your SEO with these easy tips
When it comes to advertising your product online – whether you’re selling goods in a digital marketplace, creating killer content or writing the next viral blog – ensuring you master Google search and website SEO is one of the big hurdles we all face.
The competition to top Google lists for some search terms is fierce. That isn’t a surprise when you consider roughly 92% of all internet search traffic is directed via Google.
Being ‘top of Google’, therefore, is paramount to the success of your website – and potentially your business. And the act of steering your site to catch Google’s attention is with Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO.
SEO is something many site owners find particularly challenging. It can feel daunting if you’re not used to dealing with it and at times totally counter-productive. It can often work against your chosen style and can look clunky if done badly.
Commercial site owners in particular can encounter problems when advertising their products. You may well ask yourself “why is my great product not top of Google?” when you know it’s better than your competitors’. Well, it may be because of your SEO.
Giving your site a virtual lick of paint can give you an instant boost up the Google rankings. It may not be enough to sustain that ranking there for long – but it will show you how effective a smart SEO strategy can be. And you can do it without needing an SEO specialist.
Boost your website’s SEO in 5 minutes
Remember that Google is crawling your site all the time, seeking to rank you against competitors when people search online. Googlebot is just an algorithm – albeit a complex one – and effectively awards websites good and bad points for their various SEO practices, from how many broken pages it has, to how much it repeats the keywords on its homepage.
So, to ensure your site is ranking highly you need to maintain strong SEO habits. If you want to boost your website in the short-term and get it ranking again, here are some quick tips to implement in just five minutes…
1. Remove or change dead links - one minute
A dead link is when the web page your hyperlinked word or image is linking to doesn’t exist anymore. This can happen quite often if you’re linking to product pages that then naturally disappear or are deleted.
Google doesn’t like dead links. Instead, it loves an interconnected mesh of pages that successfully link to each other on strong keywords (hence the ‘world wide web’). So, make sure all of your links are still active – be they internal or external links – and if they’re dead, then either delete them completely or update to a fresh URL.
Google really doesn’t like dead links
2. Add some keywords - one minute
This is really straightforward. Google tracks what you write and compares it to what people are searching, so it’s always smart to add keywords to your website. These can be added in your headings, picture captions, plain text and even website furniture.
Many people use a keyword researcher to target the specific keywords people are searching. However, for now just think about what someone would search if they wanted to buy your product. If you’re a company in Glasgow selling bathrooms, then keywords such as ‘local bathroom’, ‘bathroom design’, ‘Glasgow bathrooms’ and even ‘bathrooms near me’ could all help. Throwing in some (well-written) keyword phrases to your blog content, image captions or header descriptions will only take a minute!
And if you’re not a word wizard or would prefer someone takes this task off your hands, then perhaps Short Story can help? Sending us an enquiry also only takes a minute!
3. Change headings - two minutes
Taking into account your keywords, now have a look at your headings (that’s the H1s: primary headings and H2s: subheadings - of your website’s written content) and consider if these are keyword specific too.
Google first looks at H1s and H2s as a means to gauge if your site matches someone’s search. So, if we take our example again, it’s worth having a web page headlined ‘best bathrooms in Glasgow’, or a product page with the heading ‘nearest bathroom supplier’. Because headings are more prominent, make sure you take your time over these and avoid bad SEO. Don’t be scared to keep changing your headings over time to give them a little refresh.
4. Insert alt text into pictures - one minute
This is a tiny job but can be immensely valuable for your SEO. The alt text acts as a written explanation of what an image is showing. It helps people who are visually impared understand the web page better, and is sometimes what shows when an image doesn’t load properly on a reader’s computer, tablet or phone.
Smart SEO writers can use the alt text as an extra signal to Google that the image – and therefore the web page the image sits on – is relevant to the search. For example, an article about Novak Djokovic winning the French Open would carry an image with the alt text that reads something like ‘Novak Djokovic holds the French Open trophy after winning at Roland Garros’. Here, you’ve helped visually impaired readers as well as Google, as the alt text can be read aloud by screen readers. Win-win.
A Wordpress CMS lets you change the alt text so it’s different to the title, caption and description of the image
What now?
So, now you know what to do in order to improve your SEO, it’s time to implement it! We’ll admit these practices can take some time getting used to. But a disciplined editor or website owner can certainly make effective changes within five minutes to improve their Google ranking.
Of course, if you’re looking for more substantial website improvements and are thinking of engaging with an SEO company, then Short Story is here to help. Our small team will discuss your website’s needs – whether it be SEO improvements, keyword research, recommendations or even editorial implementation – and get you on the right path to climbing up the Google rankings.
Sound interesting? Feel free to get in touch with us today.
Photo by Aphiwat chuangchoem from Pexels