Top 10 Tips to Attract Search Engines to Your Website
Search engines have made it easier for millennials to look for practically any information online as there are millions of websites with different types of information. Browsing through each website to access the information needed is not only tedious but also takes us many steps back into the era where libraries were the only means of accessing information.
Search engines do more than just draw out links to the information we are looking for on the web; they also help to save time spent searching for it and bring the best of the best results. Hence the race to get noticed by these search engines by many online businesses. If you have a website and you are seeking to get more attention from search engines the assistance of a good content marketing agency will come in handy. You can also consider using these top ten tips to attract search engines to your website.
1. Use keywords appropriately
Search engines are attracted to keywords, and they are also repelled by excessive use of it, so you have to find the right balance. Keywords should be used sparingly in the main body of the content. It should also be in the title and meta tag. The supporting images that would be used alongside the content should also have the keyword present in the file name. If you are using a WordPress site, you can install the Yoast SEO; a very popular plugin that is perfect for getting keywords and SEO right.
2. Have a good and catchy title
The title of your content is the first point of contact these visitors are going to have with your website or the content you have written about so it should naturally make them curious to click on it. While inserting relevant keywords in a title is great for SEO, what would be even greater is when the title sounds very natural with the keywords. Imagine you are your target audience, is that something that you will click on without thinking twice about it? If you are unsure about how best to structure the title, take the keywords and enter it into a search engine. You will find topics with similar keywords embedded in the title. Study how these titles were created and create yours as well.
3. Work on your meta descriptions
Search engines are very much attracted to meta descriptions on the pages of your website as they are to the keywords. In fact, primary or secondary keywords should be present in the meta description area. With about 155 words that are allowed in that area, you can creatively use this to both summarize your content and attract prospect visitors. Always think of your meta descriptions as those short advertising copies that should attract the attention of, first, the search engine and secondly, the visitors that the search engine would suggest your content to.
4. Make use of alternate text (ALT text)
Search engines are aware that sometimes even when a page loads fast, the images might take a longer time to load than the main text. Hence the need to use alternate text for all supporting images used in a post. With this, readers are able to have an idea of what the supporting images are while reading through the main content. The alternate text also improves SEO of the website.
5. Create good content that is relevant to your target audience
Getting the attention of search engines starts with having very good content while following a well thought out and researched SEO strategy. If you have the best SEO strategy and horrible content you are going nowhere.
6. Consistently build credible links within your content
Search engines are attracted to content with good links. It could either be inbound links or internal links. Avoid links to websites that are spammy. The moment Google flags such a website, other websites also pointing to that spammy website will be flagged too as co-conspirators.
7. Be consistent and frequent with publishing new content
Web crawlers that are responsible for looking for new website links that they have not seen before and indexing it on the search engine’s index are always on the lookout for fresh and frequently updated content. The more frequent you post and the more updated your content is, the more indexing your website will get which would increase your chances of being ranked high on the search engine query results.
8. Share links to your content on social media
Search engines are a big fan of other credible websites including social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google plus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Sharing your published content through these channels can increase your chances of been seen by search engines. Here is another interesting thing; the more people interact (by sharing, liking or commenting) with the content you share on these social networking platforms, the more increases your chance of being ranked high on these search engines.
9. Avoid keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing does more harm to your SEO, and your website could even be permanently flagged down by search engines for it. When you excessively use keywords in content areas of a web page or meta tags in a way that sounds very boring and unnatural just to increase your chances of ranking high on search engines results page (SERP), you put off people from visiting your website not just the search engine’s web crawler. Often times, websites that stuff a lot of keywords in their content are usually more focused on getting ranks rather than delivering relevant and good content that will be of help to the readers and possibly encourage them to keep coming back to the website.
10. Implement local SEO strategies
While developing SEO strategies that would help you get noticed by search engines as well as increase your chances of ranking high on the search engine results page, you should also focus on local SEO strategies especially if your brand caters to a local community in a state or a nation rather than within international communities. Focusing on localising your SEO will give you a better chance of ranking higher locally because your content is aimed at a very specific target audience based on their location.