Optimize your website with these organic SEO search tips
Most searchers are looking for a result local to their location. Organic SEO is the most effective way for small businesses to rank in search results. Get start started with these important tips.
Make your site secure
Look at your website URL. Does it start with http or https? If it says http, it’s hurting your ranking. The https shows that your site has an SSL certificate. Google identifies sites without an SSL certificate as not secure. Secure sites will also have a lock icon next to the URL.
An SSL certificate provides a secure connection and encryption. This keeps hackers from tracking your users’ activity when they visit your site. It also protects data corruption during file transfer. Users will opt out of entering information on sites that they don't trust. Create trust by having an SSL certificate installed.
Audivelo builds on the Webflow platform, and SSL certification is included in all hosting plans. Not all platforms provide this.
Focus on mobile
According to Statista, more than 63 percent of searches originated from a mobile device in 2021. Mobile devices account for 58% of global internet traffic. Your website needs to be mobile responsive and fast. The content needs to be the same type and quality of content as users find on your desktop site.
Speed things up
Google introduced Core Web Vitals in May 2020 to provide front end performance metrics. Page speed has a massive impact on the user’s experience. Your bounce rates will be high if a visitor has to wait more than a few seconds to view content. SEO best practices for 2022 say your pages should load in three seconds or less on a mobile device.
Accessibility is important
Be mindful of the needs of all visitors. Your website's users should be able to find and access all the content equally. Images should include tags that screen readers can reference. Contrast between text and backgrounds should be high enough to read the letters. Colors should be used to highlight, but not obscure content.
Create quality content
How do you let Google and users know what queries your site is relevant for? With great content. SEO best practices involve optimizing your content for users and bots so both can find you.
The structure of an article should include hierarchal headings for each section or paragraph. Headings should include keywords relevant to the topic. These headings increase readability by dividing up content. Optimize the file size and include "alt tags" for all images to aid accessibility and search.
Build on pillars
Look at the keywords that your website ranks highest for. This will define your pillar content. Create articles and other content based on those keywords. Then write related articles and build out from there.
Think of each of your main keywords as a pillar, then cluster topics connected to them. Use your linking structure to connect topic clusters and boost your search signal.
Know SEO best practices for content length
Content length often correlates with page position. Posts should be 500 words or more. Google expects higher content word counts to be more thorough and informative. Pages with more than 2,000 words are more likely to be in the top ten results than pages with fewer words. That doesn't mean you should ramble on until you reach a base number goal. You don’t have to make every piece of content that long. SEO best practices involve always thinking about your audience and topic.
Prepare for Voice Search
Voice search is becoming more popular. Users are turning to assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home. When optimizing your content think like a potential customer. How would they speak, and what words would they use when searching for your product or service? Instead of targeting a single keyword, use phrases. This will give better voice search results.
How can you optimize for voice search? It helps to put a question and answer in your content. Most voice searches are question based. When they are, Google usually chooses a page that has both the question and an answer.
Hire an SEO expert
As you can imagine after reading this list of important organic search tips, researching and writing high performing articles takes a lot of time. First you have to discover keywords relevant to your audience. Write the article while making sure you include your keywords and hit your targeted word count. Then carefully select and optimize images. Add internal and external links. Finally schedule and publish the article. After that you have to plan the next group of articles. And repeat.
If that sounds like more work than you can handle, think about hiring an expert to do the heavy lifting for you. AUDIVELO offers several SEO packages to fit your budget.