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So stop ignoring them and create a customized description for every page you visit.
4. Markup pages with microdata
You’ll notice that major companies have more information visible in Google’s search results. This is micro data.
Microdata may contain a phone number, a logo, or an address. These sites have been setup in such a way as to provide more information to Google’s crawlers.
Use a program like Scheme to help build your Microdata.
Studies show that there’s a 25% higher click-through rate on search results that have this information visible.
5. Keep URLs short and descriptive
Your URL is one of the first things a search crawler will see, make sure it is easy to crawl and categorize.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is using the standard title of the page as their URL. While this works most of the time, it can be too long.
Long URLs make it difficult to categorize your website properly. It may mean your site appears under searches you never intended it to.
This can hurt your ability to hit your target audience.
Try to keep your URL to roughly five words or less. There’s little need to have anything longer than that.
6. Use title tags effectively
Title tags tell search engines what a page is all about. You’ll find it at the top of a browser.
Remember that Google limits title tags to between 50 and 60 characters. It’s generally recommended that you should keep them below 55 characters.
Your copy must drive people to click on the site. Try to use a common keyword term at the front of your title, but only if it fits.
This should be easy because it is the category of your website.
7. Use header tags in the right way
Header tags come in the form of <H1>, <H2>, and <H3>; they go all the way down to <H6>.
These determine the order of importance of each header. We should mention that crawlers will look at these tags before anything else.
It’s how headers are identified and how sites are categorized. Use them to enhance your SEO.
Furthermore, you should aim to avoid generic tags, such as ‘Products’. Instead you should try to make them as unique as possible for better results.
8. Optimize image alt text
Image alt text is the text that appears if a user has images disabled. It also helps to tell search engines exactly what an image is.
Remember, they can’t read images directly. They don’t see what a human sees. All they can do is look at the file name, the description, and the alt text.
Yet this is a part people often forget. They assume everyone can already see the images so they don’t need to worry. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Make an effort to create alt text. All this is is a basic phrase that defines the image. For example, if you had a picture of a sleeping cat you might call it ‘sleeping cat image’.
9. Make inbound links natural
The link neighbourhoods were amongst the first entities to fall when Google started to implement Panda and Penguin. And for good reason. They were toxic and it meant search engine results were full of spam.
Inbound links continue to matter, and you shouldn’t discount them, but there’s a twist.
Monitor where any inbound links come from and ensure they are coming from quality websites. They should be entirely natural and come from websites that are relevant to your industry.
If a page takes longer than five seconds to load, Google is going to penalize your site. This is because site speed is a marker of quality. Google doesn’t want poor quality websites ranking high.
First, you need to test the speed of your site. Google already provides a free tool you can use for this, but there are a range of third-party tools that accomplish the same thing.
If it takes longer than five seconds to load, you may well need to upgrade your server to make it run faster. Alternatively, you can reduce the number of heavy files on your site. For example, you could remove some videos or images.
SEO in 2015 is about quality
What this article should show you is that SEO in 2015 is about a focus on quality. You don’t have to edge towards grey hat or black hat SEO techniques in order to succeed. By improving the quality of the content on your website, there’s no reason why you can’t get the results you’re searching for.
Guest Author: Alesia Hsiao wrote this article for you today based off of information that she received during a recent interview with SEO expert Alex Miller.
If you run a website, you’re probably familiar with the temptation to log in to your analytics account every day to constantly check your page views.
If you’ve ever traded stocks before, you might find that the sensation is similar to sitting around waiting for a stock to take off.
In both cases, you feel like your financial future depends on the numbers you see.
But while page views are important to monitor, they aren’t the key to building a powerful platform. “Content is king” is a saying so popular that’s been almost overused, but if content is what sits on the throne in the land of digital marketing, engagement is the ambassador that escorts guests into the territory – convincing these potential visitors to put down roots in the newfound soil of your website.
It that sounds a bit extreme, stick with me. By the end of this article, I’m confident you’ll agree that measuring engagement is the key to grow your website.
A Better Way to Measure
Pageviews, as a metric, can be misleading. Just because an individual has chosen to visit your website doesn’t mean that they’re going to follow your blog from now on. In fact, some studies suggest that approximately one out of every three visitors leave without any sign of engagement. Further, out of 100,000 pageviews tracked by this research, roughly 34,000 of them left within 15 seconds of entering the site.
Pageviews must been seen as literally just that – the number of people who have viewed your page, regardless of the amount of time they spent viewing it. Engagement from visitors is a much better way to measure the impact your blog is having.
Tools like Filament can show you things like the number of comments you’ve received, how far visitors are scrolling down your pages and their general bounce rates – all of which tell you a lot more about the true level of engagement on your website than pageviews alone.
It’s a Two Way Street
Now, let’s get one thing straight. Measuring how and when visitors are engaging with your website is important, but so is making the engagement they’re showing you a two-way street.
Responding to the engagement someone has shown your website is critical when it comes to building your brand and growing your website. Imagine that you’ve come across a new website you like. You like one of the site’s articles so much that you leave a comment on the relevant Facebook post and even share it with your friends on this social network.
Which would make you feel better about engaging with the brand in the future: An enthusiastic “thank you” from the website’s owner – or crickets?
When visitors go out of their way to engage with you, make sure to respond in an appropriate amount of time. If nothing else, a simple “Thanks!” will show readers that you noticed their questions or comments and are grateful for them. However, if you really want to build a loyal audience and grow your website, use their comment as a foundation to launch a digital conversation.
Many bloggers find the beginning of their next post within the comments left on the current one. Or, if your reader has complimented you, return the favor. Who can turn down a genuine compliment? Not only did they take the time to read your latest content – deciding to choose it over one of the other 3 million posts written so far today – they actually liked it enough to leave you a little content of their own, and that deserves some recognition.
Sharing is Caring
Another form of engagement that trumps the number of pageviews you receive in terms of importance is the number of social shares your site or individual posts receive. It’s fairly simple now to share an article on any of the major social media networks, but few people automatically share everything they read. Some will share a link through their Facebook, while other visitors will opt to tweet the link of their new favorite blog posts on Twitter.
When this occurs, make sure to thank them for spreading your message and thinking highly enough of your content to share it with all of their followers. It sounds simple, but this small level of engagement encourages future interactions. Don’t forget to share other people’s content, too – especially if it comes from influencers in your field!
We’re All Human
Human interaction breeds conversation, which can lead to friendships and relationships in the long run. When you choose to respond to those who interact with your website, you transform yourself from “that guy who wrote a post on a site” to a real, live human being on the other end of the internet connection.
Things become more personal as readers realize that they aren’t just on any old website – they’re on your site, and it’s special enough to remember.
This level of appreciation takes engagement with your website to a whole new level. Not only will these engaged visitors be more willing to share your content with the world, they’ll be more likely to return to your blog when new content is posted since they feel like they know you personally. We’re all human, but we tend to lose sight of this on the Web – which is what makes genuine engagement so important.
So stop living and dying over vanity metrics like pageviews. Engagement is the best way to grow your website, as this kind of one-on-one engagement with your readers fosters digital conversations that lead to curiosity – and, ultimately, loyalty – to your site.
Show your engaged visitors some love when they choose to comment on your content or share it through their social media accounts. Time spent engaging with them will make a difference in your blog’s growth, regardless of the number of pageviews they rack up.
What other techniques do you use to build engagement and grow your website?
Your winning in business cannot depend on others taking a lot of time to understand you and what you mean. If you have had a cover letter and resume simply go into the email trash bin of an HR department, without your receiving even an acknowledgment of your existence, you know you haven’t mastered the language of getting attention, much less a positive response.
Saying what you mean — and getting a positive response — is akin to winning at Scrabble or Words with Friends. You have to be strategic in your thinking. You have to play the game, being tactically superior to others.
Words are what make the difference between your getting what you want or not. It’s not your good intentions that gets you a job or a new client. It’s not your sincerity. It’s not your big heart. It’s not your ability to work hard.
You must frame your position, argument or proposition in a winning way, one that generates a specific, positive response.
Here are three wordplay tricks that you might put to use.
Take out as many pronouns as possible when you tell a story. Make it less about you, and more about the recipient of your effort. Big tip: don’t start with “I.” For example,
DON’T SAY:
I volunteer every Monday evening at the food pantry on Main Street, because I want to give back to people. I am especially drawn to families with kids, who are struggling to get on their feet. I worry they only have that one meal to look forward to, and I want to make a difference in their lives by bringing groceries and serving them dinner.
DO SAY:
One out of every six kids in America is “food insecure.” It’s hard to believe, but that many kids wake up not knowing if they’ll have a meal that day. So you’ll find me every Monday evening at the food pantry on Main Street, bringing groceries and serving dinner to families gathered there for perhaps their only meal of the day.
Lead with what your recipient gets, rather than frame your offer about what you receive. For example,
DON’T SAY:
I want a compensation package of $117,000 annually as well as a modest moving allowance and a guaranteed expense account of $2500 per month for client entertainment.
DO SAY:
It’s great to have the opportunity to discuss compensation with you. I can meet all the job objectives as well as the quotas for production you have outlined and arrive ready to work on the day you prefer, for a salary of $117,000 annually as well as a modest moving allowance and a guaranteed expense account of $2500 per month for client entertainment.
Kill your habit of saying: “like,” “you know,” and “I mean.” For example,
DON’T SAY:
At my last job, you know, I had a lot of responsibility. I mean, I worked overtime like three days a week for like months.
DO SAY:
At my last job, the amount of responsibility given to me required my working overtime three days a week on average for several months.
Some people don’t like these types of wordplay “tricks” because they believe it’s not authentic to change your natural speaking pattern. However, consider that your aspirations may have outgrown the way you express yourself. It may be time to strategically approach communication. These three tactical changes may jumpstart your success.
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