If you have a business, that business should have a website. And if you’ve put the time and money into setting up a business website, you want that website to get as many views as it can. Search engine optimization, or SEO, describes the techniques used to make web content list as highly as possible on search engines.
In the early years of the internet, SEO involved tactics such as repeating keywords frequently and linking to as many outside sites as possible. As search engines have become more advanced, these tactics have become outdated. However, as long as search engines exist, there will always be a formula deciding what results rank highest. And as long as this formula exists, there will be ways to create websites that make it work to their advantage.
Today, there are companies that specialize in search engine optimization. If your company can afford it, these companies can really help nudge your site towards the top. However, even working on your own, there are things you can do yourself to help your website thrive.
Connect it to social media
Spamming articles with links no longer helps SEO, but linking your business’s web page to your business’s facebook, twitter, or other social media platforms can boost its results. Due to their high traffic, social media sites rank high, and affiliating your site with one or more can increase its credibility.
Use evergreen content
Evergreen content is content that will not quickly go out-of-date. An article explaining a recent increase in your company’s profitability will go out of date as the numbers change, but an article explaining a long-term market trend will remain relevant for a while. Depending on the nature of your company, you probably will not be able to keep all of the content on your site evergreen, but make sure that at least some of it is. Why? Evergreen content will get more views overall, since it has a longer timespan to get them. This will increase your sites’ results. Also, if you don’t have the time to update your website frequently, evergreen content will ensure that what’s there won’t go out of date.
Think human
Search engines are designed to put sites in order by how useful they will be for human users. As search engines get more advanced, they become more likely to turn out the most useful results first. Besides, once your site gets picked up by Google, it will be read by a human. While you’re trying to get your site noticed by a computer, make sure it is useful for people as well.