Here are five really easy ways to instantly improve the quality of your web pages and hopefully go up a bit in the rankings.
Optimise Your Title Tag
Google have recently changed their layout and I’ve already posted about this but when you tweak your title tag remember that Google may only show the first 55 characters of your title so optimise with this in mind.
You also need to make your title tag “clickable”. This doesn’t mean it has to say “Click Here” or “Buy Now” it can just be an attractive line of text which makes the user want to click your entry. The title of this page is “5 easy ways to improve your SEO and web page” which is below 55 characters and also attractive enough to click on with power words like “easy” and “improve” grabbing attention.
Also make sure your title directly relates to the content on the web page and includes the important phrases that are searched for. Keep titles short and simple.
Optimise Your Description Tag
Another easy improvement you can make to your web pages is to optimise your description tag. Like the title tag this may be presented in front of your prospective visitors in the search results so it needs to read like a proper sentence(s) and be attractive enough to click on.
Keep the length of your description tag to around 165 characters, make sure it relates directly to the content on the page and make is simple. You may be able to get 2 or 3 very short sharp sentences within the character limit.
Optimise Your Image ALT Tags
Lets get back to optimising image ALT tags properly. Its meant to indicate the alternative text that’s shown when the image can’t be rendered and it should describe what the image is. Screen readers for blind web surfers use the ALT tag to describe the image so lets stop putting 25 keywords in there and actually describe the image.
If you have a picture of the Union Jack then set the ALT tag to “A Union Jack flag flying in the wind.”
You never know you may get some extra traffic coming your way from Google’s image search.
Content/Text Checks
I try to revisit all the pages on my website every 6 months and bring the content up to date. Sometimes I change an image, edit a paragraph or just tweak a small line of text. It pays to keep your pages up to date.
Revisit old blog posts and update the information. I recently changed my “How to write a title tag” post to reflect the recent changes to the title length.
Remember all your pages are available for visitors and searchers to find all the time, the last thing they want is to land on old information so either update your pages or point to more recent and correct information.
Share/Follow Buttons
Getting people to share your content and follow you on social media is a great way to get your website out to the masses but it can take time and effort to create followers so make it really easy for people to share and follow you.
To the left of my blog posts are the share links and at the top right of this page are my follow links – easy to see and really easy to use.
Adding these to your website is dead easy. Just head over to AddThis or ShareThis and they provide copy and paste code that you can slot into your website. If you use WordPress or another CMS system there are plugins available.
There’s five easy ways to improve all your web pages and hopefully you’ll start heading up the rankings. Remember it can take time for changes to reflect in the search results but if you build great pages that are designed specifically for users you’ll be on the way to creating a website that Google wants to list!
If you want to learn more about SEO and take your website the the next level then take a look at my SEO Training and don’t forget to claim a few SEO & Social Media Tips Pack.