SEO could be quite an overwhelming process, even for the most experienced developer.

But help is at hand!

At Local SEO Edinburgh we have put together 9 easy tips to get your website on the right track and all by doing-it-by-yourself.

<H1>–> What’s the first element search engines look at? Headers. Why? To determine what the page is about. Headers matters, but not only search engines will look at this, your visitors read headings and decide if the page is of any interest to them. It is a good practice to use at least one H1 per page keyword relevant to the content on the page.  Headers also help to organise the page structure, improving the user experience.

Code validation –> In order for a search engine to read your page, this needs to be free of errors. Using a validator (HTML, CSS) you can make sure the code on your web page complies with the standards set by the W3 Consortium, the organisation that issues the HTML and CSS standards. By validating your code you make sure your code is clean and maintainable.  And it Helps Cross-Browser, Cross-Platform and Future Compatibility.

URL –> Does your URL structure matters with your overall traffic? Should you add keywords on your URLs? Well, according to Neil Patel from Quicksprout it’s a ‘grey area’ type of answer. You shouldn’t stuff your URL’s with keywords, or make them structurally shorter or longer, the impact on the rankings comes from your back-links and your content.

Internal links –>Helping search engines know what is your page about ensuring you are linking your pages to each other, appropriately. This way search engines notice your content weight and importance and they will crawl your website giving it the appropriate ranking.

Indexing pages –> Your website will be recognized by search engines if its pages are indexed. This makes crawlers from search engines go and read the pages and rank the website.

Footer links –> The footer it’s an element often forgotten and misinterpreted by web developers. You should use it to place links, like your secondary navigation, but, be cautious, some businesses have had penalties due to the amount of anchor text placed on their website coming from their footer links. A penalty from Google is the last thing you want.  If in doubt make your internal links on the footer ‘nofollow’…just in case.

Images –>You should know by now, that search engines crawl text. Avoid using images as links. Images grab user’s attention, which is great to improve your user’s experience, but not search engines.

Socializing –> Also referred as Social SEO. ‘… users interacting and communicating with other users and uploading or sharing content. The crossover between the two is called social SEO…’  Quite surprisingly, many of us use social platforms in our day-to-day live, but not that many businesses realize the huge potential and the real need for their business to be using them too. Search engines grant businesses ranking by counting their social interactions with users, like, Google+ circles, Facebook Likes, Followers on Twitter.It’s not a question of ‘should my business have a presence on social media?’, but, ‘what social platforms are the best for my business?’

Tidy your files –> Same way you show users how to reach your content, you should help search engines by structuring your website files. Don’t mix them, make them easy to find. Keep them tidy.

Go on, try them today and let us know how easy it was…or if you need some help.

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