Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of optimizing a website to make it rank higher in the search engine result pages. Higher visibility in the search engine result pages will lead to an increase in traffic and revenue for your business.

One important thing you need to know about SEO is that it is always changing. Techniques that used to work earlier might not be relevant today. Therefore, you need to be always on the lookout for the latest optimization techniques so that you can stay ahead of your competition. Here is a list of the top five things you should be doing today to optimize your website for search engines:

1. Mobile Optimization

If your website doesn’t work on mobile, you are leaving more than 50% of search engine traffic on the table. Keep in mind that mobile traffic has surpassed traffic from all other devices. Your website should be as accessible on mobile as it is on desktop.

The starting point of mobile optimization should be loading speed and readability. Make sure your website loads fast on mobile devices. Also, the design should be optimized for mobile devices. It should be easy for users to find relevant information.

There are several free tools available online that allow you to check how well optimized your website is for mobile devices. Make sure your website is designed with a responsive theme. In addition to a responsive theme, you should also make sure that website images are optimized for speed.

2. Content Optimization

There was a time when frequently published low-quality content used to be enough for high rankings but those days are long gone. These days, you need to focus on the best quality of content you are able to produce so that you can increase the search engine traffic for your website.

The first step towards content optimization is keyword research. Use free as well as paid tools to determine keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business. Think about variations of these keywords and make sure these variations are naturally included in the content. When it comes to placement of keywords, make sure your top relevant keyword is part of the page title and the page URL. Relevant keywords should also be part of the web page metadata.

You should also focus on the constant upgrading of the existing content. The relevancy of your website depends a lot on posting the super high-quality content. So, make sure every single piece of content published on your website is relevant and true.

3. Website Loading Speed

Internet users these days expect website pages to load instantly. If your web page takes long to load, users will click the back button and leave your website before it has even loaded. Therefore, loading speed is not only a highly relevant factor for SEO but also for user experience.

Research has shown that faster loading websites not only rank higher but also generate more conversions. Google has also categorically stated that the web page loading speed is one of the ranking factors. It might not have as much weight as some of the other ranking factors but it is something completely under your control. Make use of online tools to determine the factors that are affecting the page loading speed and optimize those elements to make sure your website loads fast.

4. Featured Snippets

You must have noticed these snippets that appear at the top of search results. It is an attempt by Google to provide relevant information to users as quickly as they can. You should take advantage of this feature by adopting a strategy to rank as many of your webpages in the featured snippets as possible.

The key to get featured is to do proper keyword research. Once you have discovered relevant keywords, you should answer some questions based on these keywords. If possible, make a numbered list and provide relevant information in a simple style.

5. Backlinks

One of the most common misconceptions or misinformation prevalent in the current SEO world is that backlinks are not as important as they once were but nothing could be further from the truth. There are indeed several factors that affect the search engine rankings but backlinks are still an important part of the algorithm. Therefore, you should adopt various strategies to attract backlinks from awesome websites.

Google suggests creating high quality, relevant and unique content to naturally attract links. However, creating good content is no longer enough to can get links. You also need to share content on your social media channels so that it gets in front of people who will then naturally link to it if they find the content useful.

Conclusion

Overall, search engine optimization is always changing. The key to optimizing your website is to keep it fresh and provide optimized and useful content for your readers. The above-mentioned tips should help you get started with the SEO of your website.

Chances are you’ve already spent a lot of time working on your website’s user experience and usability which are both essential for online business nowadays. However, without properly optimizing the page load speed, you are going to ultimately fail on both.

Speed is a vital part of both your website’s user experience and usability. Without it, you risk losing visitors and that means fewer customers. Nobody in this day and age likes a slow website.

The Load Time Is Imperative

In the infant days of the web, most sites were static HTML and so, theoretically, it would take little time to load. However, the connection speeds were ideally low. It was very important to put the number of graphics and image size on a web page. Not to mention that dynamic sites back then utilized CGI, which slowed things substantially. Now, bandwidth has increased and we can do a lot more on the internet, which is pretty evident.

Even so, it is imperative to keep in mind that the old rules still apply. Despite the increase in internet speeds and our gadgets becoming faster and faster, our patience just seems to get shorter and shorter. People want what they want now and that’s why companies must optimize their site’s load time.

In this read, we are going to look at some of the best ways to increase the speed of your website and decrease its load time.

Tips To Make Your Site Load Faster

1. Optimize the Size of Images

Images are a crucial part of a site as it makes it look catchy and attracts more and more visitors to interact with the site. This is pretty evident as websites without images and just content are the least preferred by people. This is particularly the case for sites in the e-Commerce niche as images give users more clarity regarding the products.

One of the best approaches to get better transformation rates is to include a lot of item images. In one study, 66% of people said that they needed to see at least three item pictures before deciding to make the purchase. This means that if you are running an e-Commerce website, images are extremely essential.

However, it’s imperative to keep in mind that pictures ideally decrease the loading speed of the site. In this case, you should use HTML responsive images. An alternative is to compromise on the image quality by compressing them.

2. Reduce The Server Response Time

The DNS lookup affects the amount of time it takes for a page to load. DNS is an acronym for domain name system and basically, it translates a site’s URL into the internet protocol (IP) address and the DNS lookups find the domain name system record in the database. The amount of time all this takes depends on how fast the DNS server is and thus determines the loading speed of your site. As such, reducing server response time increases the speed of your website.

3. Reduce the Number Plugins

Nowadays, plugins have become an essential component of websites. They work as add-ons to the site by adding specific functionalities. This makes your site rich in regards to the number of functionalities. However, you should keep in mind that plugins reduce the loading speed of the site which in turn affects the website’s performance.

The first thing you should do is check which plugins begin to reduce the speed of the website. You should aim at keeping your plugins to as few as possible or the speed will begin to decrease gradually.

4. Enable Browser Caching

If you visit a website now and load it later, you might notice that it’s faster than before. Well, whenever you visit a site, some of the data is stored on your hard drive in cache memory. That’s why the website loads faster. This is a handy feature that when enabled, will significantly increase the load time of your site on the users’ end.

5. Monitor Your Website Speed Over Time

After you have optimized your site, you should monitor the speed on a regular basis. You just have to open the site and note the time of loading. There are an array of SEO tools online that you can utilize to monitor the speed of your site.

Are you choosing between SEO and PPC to increase your online visibility? Even experienced marketers have trouble answering this question. What you should understand is that there’s no clear cut answer in the first place. It all depends on the current state of your brand, your objectives, and your target market.

SEO vs PPC – Is One Better than the Other?

Both of these online marketing tactics are meant to generate more targeted traffic to your website. However, you should be aware of the subtle differences in order to tell which one to use depending on the situation. Keep reading to learn the advantages and disadvantages of SEO and PPC.

SEO – Boost Your Organic Traffic

Every marketer is big on SEO—and for a good reason. It’s considered by many to be one of the most cost-effective digital marketing techniques. It improves awareness by improving your organic rankings, allowing your website to be seen by more potential customers.

SEO also plays a big role in branding. Studies show that consumers trust brands that they see on the first page of the search listings. If your website ranks well for a variety of keywords, potential customers will gradually remember your brand name, thereby increasing trust. This can be a huge difference-maker when it comes to luring in more customers and improving sales.

What’s more, SEO is known to boost credibility. By simply having your website rank number one for your target keyword, an audience that looks for your products or services will view you with heightened credibility.

Of course, website traffic will also skyrocket if you manage to climb up the rankings, especially for multiple keywords with a decent monthly search volume. The best thing about this is that SEO tends to drive laser-targeted traffic, which means you’re not just getting random visitors to your website. This organic traffic also doesn’t dry up as soon as you stop shelling out money. Expect your efforts to be rewarded in the long run as long as you stick to Google’s quality guidelines.

Perhaps the only downside to SEO is the time it takes to achieve high organic rankings. Many marketers expect overnight results, which prompts them to give up quickly. Keep in mind that it can take months to get to the first page of Google, especially if you’re trying to rank for very competitive keywords. This means you may have to keep investing money into SEO techniques for a long time before you start gaining ROI.

PPC – Immediate Visibility

Paid search can generate quick returns if you set things up correctly. While many business owners shy away from this tactic because of the costs involved, you should take a closer look at the benefits of this technique so you wouldn’t miss out on laser-targeted visibility.

As you may know, paid search results appear above-the-fold, which means potential customers will see them right away. Aside from the guaranteed visibility, you also have more control over your marketing messages. You can add site links, bullet points, reviews, pricing, locations, and phone numbers.

Visual product ads also make it easy to promote your products online. They provide users a quick glance of relevant products, enticing them to click through instead of wasting time jumping from one website to the next.

Even if your ads don’t get a lot of clicks, they will generate dividends by boosting your brand visibility. Again, people trust the brands they see in the search listings, even those appearing in the paid search results.

Targeting is another strong point of PPC. It allows you to deliver the exact content you want to your potential customers. You can choose to deliver the ads based on keywords, the day of the week, language, age, geography, and previous visits of users.

The speed at which PPC provides results is its biggest advantage over SEO. Of course, this comes at a price. The moment you stop bidding for ads, you lose all the visibility. While you can control your budget, it can take time to figure out how much to spend per day without losing revenue.

Final Verdict

A comprehensive approach holds the key to a successful online marketing campaign. There’s no reason to choose only one of these two fantastic traffic generation techniques. If your website doesn’t have a lot of traffic right now, be sure to keep working on your SEO efforts. Also, you may want to consider using PPC to generate immediate traffic to your site. This way, you can still attract customers and boost sales even if your pages are nowhere to be found in the organic search results.

SEO and PPC can go hand-in-hand. They aren’t meant to compete against each other. Take time to master both of them and you’ll find yourself well-equipped to use the best strategy that yields excellent returns in the short and long term.