There are numerous ways to optimize your website for search engines, everyone wants to get on the front page of Google, and I understand why. However, there is a foundation of search engine optimization that often gets overlooked, and I'll explain it in detail in this blog post.
For this "lesson" I'm going to focus on Google ranking by covering the four key areas to hit first and foremost which gives you an excellent bang for your buck, and it's straightforward DIY:
1. Domain Names
2. Content
3. Image Alt Tags
4. Google Maps
1. Domain Names
The address of your site is one of the first things people register to get the ball rolling, but I do notice a few mistakes that I like to remedy off the bat. The first one is registering only one domain with your business name. Let's say for instance you have a business name like Google, but you're just starting, now Google is an interesting business name, but it's hard to figure out what the business does by the title alone.
The problem is registering only: www.google.com
The solution is registering keyword rich domain names such as www.bestsearchengine.com or www.localsearchresults.com
Why is this important? It's essential because starting very few people outside of your word of mouth network will know what your business function is and more importantly when someone searches for services or products like yours they will most likely not be aware of your brand name. Connecting a few keyword rich domains to your site is cheap and easy.
2. Content
Yes, yes, it's a bit of a no-brainer, but there are a few strategies to building content that helps with your relevancy and boosts your ranking. When writing SEO content for your site make sure that the first paragraph of your landing page includes the four key areas above, for example:
"Welcome to BUSINESS NAME; we provide services or products listed in our keyword rich DOMAIN NAMES we have connected to our site. Our IMAGE ALT TAGS represent our services, and located at EXACT GOOGLE MAPS ADDRESS."
Continuing on you should expand on each of these four critical areas in separate paragraphs using "long tail keywords." Long tail keywords are typically questions and phrases that people punch into a search engine to get a result, for example, "What is the best search engine?"
LOCAL SERVICES/PRODUCTS PRO TIP: Think about how searchers find your local competitors within 50 miles and make sure to add some of their keywords to your site, keywords aren't copyrightable so as long as you're not duplicating large swaths of text and their business name you should be alright. *This is not legal advice, depending on your location you should consult an IP/Copyright lawyer to be sure.
3. Image Alt Tags
These are little more convoluted and depending on the platform you're developing on your may have to do some research or hire someone to add these keywords to your images, either way, it's cheap and easy to hire someone and should only take a few minutes per image. In basic terms, an image alt tag allows visual search engines such as Google Image search to locate content to display, no image alt tags? No visual search result.
What do you put in Image Alt Tags?
Content of the image
Your business
Where the content of the image is (Your business address)
The domain name(s)
Some platforms like Shopify, Wordpress, and Squarespace have fields when you place an image into your site that allows you to define image alt tags. If you're designing and developing from scratch, ask your developer to add in the alt tag you wrote.
4. Google Maps
No one likes a business that has no contact information; in Google Maps you should always use a physical address and complete all of the contact fields in the Google Maps business listing. While you're logged in to your Google Account (you'll need one for this step), simply go to Google Maps, type in the address you want to use and hit search, once the marker pops up on the location click the "Add your business" which is at the bottom of the search dropdown.
CONCLUSION:
Completing these 4 key areas are the most critical foundation to your SEO as it answers the relevancy question that helps drive the Google algorithm and search results. As you fill in all of this information, make sure your keywords, addresses, and domains are all the same so they are entirely connected.
The question you need to answer with a YES as you do your SEO is:
Do my domain names, written content, image alt tags, and google physical map location all relate to each other exactly?
Learn What is Search Engine Optimization by Scott Luscombe Creatibly
