Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Like any website owner, you probably want to get on the first page of Google but are wondering what actions you can take to get there. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula but you can follow these 3 tips from the experts at our SEO agency to optimize your SEO.
Table of content
Develop your content strategy
What is a content strategy? It involves determining what your website will deal with, what information you want to communicate to your visitors.
Create content for your main pages
For example, if your company offers services, you will present them on your website to encourage users to become customers. As a first step, you will create a home page that summarizes your website:
- What are the services you offer? Write a short introduction to your different solutions.
- Who are you?
- How do you stand out from the competition?
Think of this page as a "crossroads", which shows users the different directions they can take based on the information they are looking for.
Next, you will create a page for each service you offer, where you will present your offers in detail. These pages will not only be important for the user since they will help them better understand your services, but also for Google to help them determine the main keyword used on the service page in question.
For example, if you run a dental practice in Montreal, you will probably want to position your home page for a query like "dentist in Montreal". You will therefore highlight this keyword on the page by including it in your content and the tags that we will go over below.
It will also be important to sort your information in order of priority so that you can define your site hierarchy, i. e. the structure of your menu: the home page, the service pages, the "about" page, the contact page, the blog, etc. This will show Google which pages are the most important to analyze.
In addition, if you want to compete and appear interesting to Google, it is strongly recommended to write at least 500 words of content per page.
Write blog articles
Your website's blog (if you have one, and we highly recommend having one), is the best place to publish content that focuses on related topics. That is, articles in which you present services that are not necessarily your specialty, but that you want on the first page of Google in order to attract qualified traffic to your site.
Articles are a great way to attract traffic to your website by answering questions that users regularly ask themselves. You can use the AnswerThePublic tool to get an idea of search intent.
The following are examples of search intent for the "dentist" request:
One thing you need to keep in mind is that content is king for Google. The more quality content you write and publish, the more relevant you will appear to the search engine giant, which will help get you on the first page of Google.
Get on the first page by integrating your keywords
Once you have determined the relevant keywords for your web pages, you will use them strategically to help Google better understand what you are offering users.
When we refer to keyword integration, we are also referring to the semantics of that keyword. Your content should include vocabulary that relates to the keyword. As Google's algorithm becomes increasingly intelligent, it will be able to understand how the words you use relate to your main keyword.
Broadening your vocabulary will also help you present content that is more pleasant to read for the Internet user and therefore optimize the user experience.
The title tag
The title tag refers to the title of your page that appears in Google search results. It is very important to include your keyword in this tag because Google takes it into account for your SEO.
Heading tags
Heading tags are probably the most important tags along with the title tags and help structure your content. They facilitate reading comprehension for your users and search engine analysis. In order to further clarify your article on the topic you are covering and boost the SEO positioning of the keyword, some of your tags should contain the main keyword. We stress that you shouldn't include your keyword in all tags, as this may bother your readers and Google as well.
Internal links
One point you have to work on is internal links, which are the links in your content that bring readers to other pages of your site. These links will help you show the coherence and relevance of your site to Google and help it better understand your offers. Google will then be more likely to show your site to users when they search.
Build external links, also called backlinks
An external link, also known as a "backlink", is a link from another website that leads the user to your site.
For example, a blogger might include a link in their content to a post from your blog. These external links are important for SEO on Google.
On the one hand, they will attract the audience of another website to yours and on the other hand, you will look more attractive to Google. If other websites refer to your content, it means that you share relevant information for users and therefore search engines.
This is also why writing quality content is important, so that other websites will recognize you and share your content with their readers.
Ask yourself the following questions to find out if backlinks are high quality:
- Is the site that made the link in the same industry as my company? If we take the dental office as an example, it makes no sense to be linked by a clothing store, for example, since your two audiences are not looking for the same thing when when searching.
- Does the page where my link is located have any other links? If there are 50 other links on the page, the SEO weight will be very low because it is divided by as many links as there are on the page. We recommend ideally less than 5 links to maintain SEO impact.
Another technique to build these external links is writing guest articles. These are articles that you write and publish on another blog (with the permission of the website manager). The content of these articles will be related to your industry and you will include links to your own website.
For example, at My Little Big Web, we work with Quebec media and regularly send them articles that they then publish on their blog.
Conclusion
In this article, our SEO experts presented 3 tips to get on the first page of Google. These are obviously not the only actions to take, so don't hesitate to read our other blog articles on SEO!
And if you need help getting to first place on Google, don't hesitate to contact us!
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