How to Take Advantage of SEO in 2019

Posted on March 1, 2019

Years ago, SEO basically meant coming up with a list of words that you wanted to associate with your site and plopping them into the code. Search engines would read the list of words, and if it contained a word that the user searched for, your page would be listed in the results. This lead to very inaccurate results, as may site owners were putting in words that had nothing to do with their site, just so they would show up in search results.

In more recent times, search engines have become much more advanced. The results are now displayed based on relevance and popularity; which is determined by mathematical equations.

In 2019, the best way to get consistent traffic to your website is by utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

We’ve all heard of SEO and know it’s important.

But how do you utilize it for your website?

It doesn’t take a web developer to take advantage of your SEO capabilities.

Understanding the basics to follow is a surefire way to rank higher in Google searches and gain more traffic for your website.

The best part? Most of these can be implemented by marketers or anyone with access to your website’s CMS.

Step #1: Clear, Descriptive Page Titles

A title is the main text that describes an online document.

Title elements have long been considered one of the most important on-page SEO elements (the most important being overall content), and appear in three key places: browsers, search engine results pages, and external websites.

Step #2: Links

If you don’t have links on your page, there is no way your result will be relevant.

For Google search results, linking to trustworthy, relevant sites is one of the top factors in your search result rank.

For example, if you sell firearms, linking to the DNR’s website regarding firearms licenses can work to prove you are a reputable brand and deserve a higher ranking in search engine results.

You can also try the practice of “cross-linking”, or linking within your own site. If you write a blog about using a DeWalt tool for a project, linking to that tool on your e-commerce site will not only up your link count, but will also put the product in front of a user prompting them to buy.

Attempt to utilize these links whenever possible to show you are an affiliate of a trusted company and should be ranked high for search results.

Step #3: Content

Content is another huge ranking factor for your search result spot.

Pages where you explain who you are and what you do are great opportunities for utilizing special keywords associated with your business.

If you are an “Outdoor Sporting Goods” company, ensure you are using these keywords as often as possible. The more you use them, the easier it is for search engines to pick up on these keywords and boost your search result ranking because of it.

The content of a page is what makes it worthy of a search result position. It is what the user came to see and is thus extremely important to the search engines. As such, it is important to create good content.

So what is good content?

From an SEO perspective, all good content has two attributes. Good content must supply demand and must be linkable.

A great place to take advantage of these keywords is by producing monthly blogs. Not only do these blogs show your expertise in your field, they also will bring in users looking for advice on a certain subject. Try to utilize these keywords as often as possible, within reason.

Step #4: Description Meta Tag

Meta descriptions (a short summary of the page content hidden from normal view) are used on search engine result pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page.

While not important to search engine rankings, meta description tags are extremely important in gaining user click-through from SERPs. These short paragraphs are a webmaster’s opportunity to advertise content to searchers and to let them know exactly whether the given page contains the information they're looking for.

Step #5: Dynamic Sitemap

Sitemaps help search engines find and classify content on your site that they may not have found on their own.

They have the ability to tell/feed search engines data on the pages of a site they want crawled as well as the priority or hierarchy of site content alongside information on when the page was last updated.

When using a site built on AdSerts CMS, the sitemap.xml file is generated dynamically each time a search engine access it, ensuring that every page of your site is included.

Step #6: Alt Attribute Tags On Images

Since search engines cannot “see” images, they gain a better understanding of what your website is about with the keywords in the alt attribute tag. The images from your website are also more likely to show up if someone does an image search for your selected keywords.

This will result in more traffic to your site. If a visually impaired person is using a special browser that reads text on websites, it will read these alternate image tags.

Enacting these practices on your website will help your website traffic increase. They don’t take any technical skill, just thought and planning.

Step #7: Semantic “Breadcrumb-like” URLs

URLs describe a site or page to visitors and search engines. Keeping them relevant, compelling, and accurate is the key to ranking well. The URL of a web document should ideally be as descriptive and brief as possible.

If, for example, a site's structure has several levels of files and navigation, the URL should reflect this with folders and subfolders. Individual pages' URLs should also be descriptive without being overly lengthy, so that a visitor who sees only the URL could have a good idea of what to expect on the page.

By creating a useful, information-rich site, and writing pages that clearly and accurately describe your content, your pages will become more relevant. Becoming more relevant will bring more website traffic, and ultimately result in more sales or eyes on your brand.

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