5 Easy Ways To Improve Your SEO

If SEO is a game then Google is the leaderboard. The better you are, the higher you appear until you end up at the very top. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and what all those fancy words mean is that it is the practice of improving your website until it is highly searchable and easy to use.  It should generate most of your traffic and get people to do what you want, whether that be to purchase an item, subscribe to a newsletter or just click through and spend some time. Below are five easy way to improve your SEO game:

1. Integrate Social Media

The number one best way to improve your SEO is to integrate social media anywhere you can. Every page, article and photo should have share buttons to all of the major social networks. There should also be a call to action to share on as many places as possible. The more your content is shared around the more likely you are able to get those valuable organic clicks.

 2. Simple Navigation

People can’t consume what they can’t find. You shouldn’t have pages leading to pages leading to pages. Everything on your website should be accessible within five clicks. Make your navigation bar somewhere easy to find and make sure to have simple and meaningful options on it. When you’re finished designing your website let your dad (or someone else who doesn’t understand computers) try and find things on it. If they can’t figure it out, go back to the drawing board.

3. URL’s Should Make Sense

If your URL’s look like example.com/43847538/ then you’re doing it wrong. Make sure your URL makes sense. If it’s a blog entry your URL should have the blog title. Not only does this make more sense for your users but it helps you show up on Google since they can find the keywords from your URL and match them to users searches.

4. Fast Hosting

The amount of time your website takes to load is crucial. Anything more than 4 seconds and chances are your potential viewer has already closed the tab. So, pay for faster hosting or optimize your website as much as possible. This includes using photos optimized for the web that are not too large, shortening the length of the pages, and getting rid of all those extra fun graphics have on your site. Google places faster loading websites higher on their search results, and if your website takes longer than ten seconds it’s very unlikely your website will show up on Google at all.

5. Mobile Friendly Design

Are we living in 2007? No. So, make sure that your website reflects that. Most people search and view websites on their smartphones so make sure to remember that when designing each page. If it doesn’t work on someone’s phone there’s no way they are going to save the link and wait until they get home. They’re just going to go find another website that offers the same thing. Many websites such as Squarespace and WordPress have mobile view built in so there is really no excuse.

These are 5 easy ways to improve your SEO. Of course, there are many much more in-depth ways to get to the top of that leaderboard, but for now, that’s all. Let me know on social media or in the comments below how you improve your clicks!