A beautiful website without sufficient traffic doesn’t produce results. SEO, or search engine optimization, is an internet marketing strategy that brings more, better-quality visitors to a website. It uses knowledge about how search engine algorithms work to target organic (unpaid) internet traffic and get more potential customers to your website.
When a potential buyer or client searches online for a commercial or home builder, architect, engineer, or MEP contractor, they typically will only visit and consider companies that appear on the first pages of their search results. Your chances of getting your company to appear on that first or second page can be improved by certain elements and characteristics that search engines evaluate on your website. What search engines prioritize changes, but there are some steps you and your website manager can take to gain attention and get more, good-quality visitors. SEO tools or practices can be divided into Technical (behind the scenes), On-Page, and Off-Page.
Technical SEO Tools
Technical SEO elements happen behind the scenes but are vital for your website’s organic growth. Technical SEO helps search engines find, crawl, index, and understand your website. A first step toward improving your technical SEO is often a performance audit, which will tell you where improvements are needed. Here are two examples of technical elements.
- Mobile Friendly- According to statistics, almost half of the internet usage happens on phones today. Therefore, how a website appears and functions on a smartphone has become more important over the past few years. There are a couple of ways to make your site mobile friendly. You will need a different website version so visitors have a positive experience. For example, having a” responsive design” means the layout responds to the screen type and size used, whether a desktop, tablet, or phone. A “dynamic serving” website has different versions of the website for each device type. The mobile site will have less content, fewer pop-ups, and larger fonts and buttons.
- Fast Load Speed- Whether on a phone or laptop, a page’s loading speed is vital. We all have become frustrated with waiting for a website page to load. Even increasing the load speed by a few seconds can make a huge difference to impatient visitors. Pages that load quickly improve search engine rankings, increase visitor engagement, and reduce your bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing a single page.) Load speed is affected by several factors, including what plugins and themes are installed on a site and the size of media files and images on a page.
On-Page SEO
The On-Page SEO elements are all about the content and how it’s organized and presented. Search engines and readers learn about a page through the URL name, meta descriptions, keywords, H1 tags, internal links, etc.
- Title Tags and Meta Descriptions– What a user sees about your company on the search results page often determines if they click through to your website. They see blue, clickable title tags and meta descriptions or brief summaries written to entice visitors. Tags should be concise, descriptive, and hopefully contain some keywords. Below the tag is the meta description, which should accurately represent the webpage’s content.
- Overall Website Appearance– Build a good-looking website with good spacing. Include both text and pictures or graphics. Search engines know internet visitors want websites that are easy and inviting to read. For example, large blocks of small text discourage readers. In comparison, many bolded headlines and sub-headlines, bulleted or numbered lists, and information charts keep visitors engaged. Interesting, high-quality photographs do, too.
- Complete Information– The more detail you include about your company’s history, qualifications, and services, the better search engines like it. A searcher looking for a specific service, like school construction, wants to know if you offer that particular service. If they search for K-12 construction and a website doesn’t list it, it may not come up high on the results. If you want to design home additions, include a description of that experience and ability. Have internal links to help visitors travel around your website to find more information easily.
- Keywords– Include the right keywords and phrases on your site the optimum number of times. Use the words your visitor might input to search for your services often enough but not too often. Keyword loading (using words too often) can steer engines away from your site. Sometimes, choosing industry words that are too common and competitive can make landing on page one of a search more difficult. Expert website builders know how to use resources to do keyword research and determine which words, used how often, will optimize your site.
- Make Changes and Additions Regularly– When visitors come to your website, they like finding new information, so posting new content regularly is important for bringing people back but also for SEO. Each time you add a photo or some news on your site, Google and other search engines notice.
- Whether you add a note about an open position, pictures of a new hire, or an article about an industry trend, new content keeps the site on the active list. In addition, web crawlers are constantly identifying and analyzing new content, and the more often bots visit your site, the easier it is to rank high in searches.
- Making additions on a schedule once a month, for example, also boosts SEO. However, content should be topical and top quality because poorly written posts or inferior graphics can do more harm than good.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO helps search engines know how useful or popular your site is. These tools boost your Page Rank. Links are a large component of the strategy.
- Links– Establish incoming links from and outgoing links to reputable sites. The links must be relevant and the sources reputable. Incoming links imply the source has confidence in your company. If, for example, the EPA links to an article on your website, that tells the search engines something. Similarly, if your website publishes a link to a report published by The New York Times, that could boost the site’s page rank.
A company’s website success depends on how well it is optimized. Search Engine Optimization, SEO, improves a website’s page ranking, brings more traffic, and matches the right visitors to the right websites. With more of the target market visiting a website, a company gains opportunities, which can lead to profitability and success.