I wrote an article early this week about Search Engines, keywords and SEO. Today I will give tips to create better SEO so you can get more visitors. Mind you, this does not happen overnight, it is really necessary that you keep this up so that it will take effect one day or another.
Make your Blog or website SEO friendly
Neat, optimized code – A theme for your blog or website should be SEO friendly, this means neat and optimized coding that is error-free. If you want to get the most out of your WordPress theme, also make use of breadcrumbs through the Yoast plugin. Anyway, this plugin is advisable if you want to do more with SEO.
Navigation – Clear, uncluttered navigation that is easy for a visitor to find. Do not use images as navigation but real text links. Images used as links are not read properly by a browser. You can use images in combination with text, hiding the text with CSS.
Navigation includes text links in an article or widget itself. Use clear keywords for a link. Example:
Don’t!
The introduction to HTML and Styling is a very interesting read. You can find it here.
Do!
The introduction to HTML and Styling is a very interesting read.
Content – Write good, unique content with relevant keywords. Avoid too many links but also too many keywords. In terms of links, I usually stick to a maximum of 3, but sometimes I go over that. That’s not a big deal as long as you don’t do it in every article. You could then give some of those links a nofollow as well. More on that soon!
In terms of keywords, the maximum number is hard to say, but if you come up with more than 10 in an article of a few hundred words then they may not be good keywords. Yoast’s plugin can help you tremendously with keyword search. Google Free Adwords is another useful tool to see what is searched a lot through a search engine. Just be sure to use relevant keywords that apply to your article.
A little guide of where and when to use keywords:
- Once in the URL if possible.
- Once in the META description.
- Once in the title or headings (headings).
- Several times in the article.
- Alt description of an image as well as the file name of the image.
Responsive version – A responsive (mobile) version of your blog is becoming increasingly important, including for search engines. Responsive themes automatically adapt to the various browser sizes of smartphones and tablets, keeping the website well and pleasantly readable on any device. Google will soon start checking all websites for Mobile Friendly Pages and then add a mobile-friendly label to search results. Check here to see if your website is Mobile Friendly. You meet the requirements when your website:
- No software is used that is not generally accessible on mobile devices, such as Flash.
- Text is used that is readable without zooming.
- Content is scaled based on screen size, so users do not have to scroll or zoom horizontally.
- Links are spaced far enough apart that it is easy to tap on the correct link.
No responsive version of your website yet? Maybe I can help you with that!
Make use of headings
In the Introduction to HTML and Styling, this also came up. It is very important to give different titles a headline. H1 is the most important, H6 the least important. H1 may only be used once throughout the site so it is important to apply it to your website name. H2 through H6 can be used multiple times for in your article or widgets. Keep in mind the hierarchy and thus think about what is most important, as these are found first by the crawler. You have four options, so you don’t have to give all titles an H2.
Example: My site name has an H1, all the titles of my articles have an H2, the headings in my articles alternate between H3 -> H6 and my widgets have an H3.
Make use of Permalinks
One of the most important factors in search engine results is the name of the site or article. If the website URL contains keywords related to a search query, the article is more likely to appear. Suppose I am looking for the Difference between <b> and <strong> in HTML and I see the following links.
Standard WordPress Permalinks!
http(:)//deliciae.org/?p=382
Beautiful Permalinks
http(:)//deliciae.org/verschil-tussen-b-en-strong-in-html/
Do you see the difference? The default way contains no keywords so it also tells nothing at all about the content of the web page. The second URL contains keywords instead of numbers so it tells us what the web page is about.
Customizing permalinks in WordPress
Customizing your permalinks is quite easy. Login to your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings and select Permalinks. Select the option with just the Message Name.
Customizing permalinks in Blogger
Blogger already uses the post name in the URL, but if you want a custom permalink for your blog post, you can do that too!
Use keywords in the filename of images
Images are very often forgotten. I’m always a little lax with that too, but images must also contain keywords. Give the filename of the image a relevant name.
Don’t!
https://deliciae.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image12345.jpg
Do!
https://deliciae.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/deliciae-mobiel-vriendelijk.jpg
Use the ALT attribute for images
One way search engines read images is through the ALT attribute, among others. The ALT attribute is originally for when the image cannot be displayed, as an alternate (ALT) text will appear.
<img src="https://deliciae.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/deliciae-mobiel-vriendelijk.jpg" alt="Deliciae is mobiel vriendelijk." >Internal Linking
Link to related articles you have previously written. This can also be done through a plugin such as Related Posts, for example.
Link with other bloggers
A big misconception of SEO is that people put a link to their blog everywhere in order to create more awareness, but in reality, this is counterproductive. After all, Google sees that as spam which can lower your Google page ranking! The best way is to add your link to a blogroll (or ask to be added there) or create a guest article for a blog. Do be respectful! Don’t go adding everyone to your blogroll and then email if they want to add you too. Do this only for blogs you like!
Those were my tips! Are quite a few huh? Hopefully it will be of some use to you. Any questions? Then ask them in the comments.
