Back in 2013, I wrote an article titled “Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklist”, and while it was correct at the time, it is now a bit dated and I thought it was a time for an update. Google is always changing their algorithm and it is hard to keep up; some tips are tried and true and others are a bit more advanced, requiring a web developer or SEO specialist to stay on top of them. I wrote this article in 2 sections: basic SEO tips and advanced SEO techniques.
What are the Basic SEO tips?
- Meta Title and Description: Make sure both of these are filled out on every page using relevant keywords without keyword stuffing.
- Alt and Title Tags: All images need to have a descriptive alt tag and all links need a descriptive title tag. This is also very friendly to users with accessibility issues, as accessibility reading software use these tags to describe the links and images.
- Google Search Console: Formally known as Webmaster tools, this is a service provided by Google that helps to index your website as well as ensure the content is up to date and not infected. It has many other features that I encourage you to read up on.
- Content: Have at least 600 words on every webpage.
- More Content: Keep updating your website on a regular basis with new blog posts, announcements, and updated page content.
- Heading Tags: H1, H2, etc. Make sure these are filled out with relevant keywords that describe your webpage. Search Engines put more weight on words in headings than words in paragraph content.
- Social Networks: Maintain social networks that link back and forth to your website and use this to help build your reputation.
- Linking: Have lots of links within your content that link to other pages on your website. Make it easy for users to find the information they need.
What are some Advanced SEO Techniques?
- Page Naming: Your web pages should have relevant descriptive keywords in the page names (e.g. advanced-seo-techniques.html). Be sure they don’t get longer than 70 characters, which includes any subfolders in the file path.
- AMP: AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. These are stripped down copies of your webpages that phones and tablets use (less or optimized images, scripts, videos, etc.). These allow users on mobile devices to save data and provide a quick page loading speed.
- Featured Snippets: These are small headings and paragraphs answering specific questions that search engine users may have. As an example, try to google a celebrity name in the form of a question, such as “Who is X?” and a featured snippet about that celebrity will likely appear at the top of your search results. You can use these snippets to give away tips and draw people to your website with helpful information.
- Keyword Research: Using either Google Ads or a variety of other tools, find out which search terms are most relevant to your website/business and are searched the most frequently. You could even just Google your competition and see what words they are using. Don’t be spammy though; the words have to make sense for your webpage.
- Focus Keywords: For each of your webpages, try to have a different focus keyword and make sure it is used in the page title, H1 and H2 headings, meta description, page name, content and image ALT tags. Again, don’t be spammy and make sure it is relevant.
- Page Speed: Google Page Speed Insights is a great tool to see how fast your webpage loads, as it provides both a mobile and desktop score. You need your pages to load fast so that potential users don’t bounce away when waiting for the page to load.
- Structured Data: This is coding and organizing your content in a way that makes sense for search engines. There are different tags to use for events, products, recipes, etc.
- Sentiment: This suggestion is venturing towards lead generation and calls to action, yet there is evidence to suggest that sentiment expressed in your title and description tags gets read by search engines and has value towards your featured snippets and possibly your search ranking.
I hope you find these tips helpful. As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at 416.450.5439.