If you want your business website to succeed online, you must learn to optimize it for search engines like Google and Bing. It is very crucial if you want your website to run as it should and get to the right audience. A lot of website owners understand this but don’t put in the work to ensure that their site gets ranked.

For those who don’t know what SEO is, it simply stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s the process of using search engine results to improve website traffic. In other words, SEO makes your website easily found on search engine results.

When your SEO is good, you have a better chance to attract visitors and convert potential customers. For instance, if you have a fitness website and you post articles about losing weight and tips on the best diet for body types, once you have good SEO practices and someone searches for the phrase “how to lose weight”, your article has more chances of popping up on the first page.

Without further ado, how can you optimize your website like a pro?

Let’s find out.

How to optimize your website for SEO

Observe your website data

It’s not enough to have a website and post content on it. You must observe lots of data to find loopholes that need adjustment. What does this mean?

Let’s consider your CTA. If a few people are visiting your site and they don’t click on your CTA, there isn’t much problem. But, if you have a large number of people that visit and don’t click on your CTA, then you might have a problem on your hands.

But how would you know this if you never search your data?

Analyzing your user behavior reports and using tools like Google Search Console to analyze data gives you a clearer picture of what is going on in your site. Look at these data and search for patterns. It will help you in the long run.

Extensive keyword research

If your Keywords are massive tools used to rank on Google. In previous years, you could think of a word or phrase, include it in your article of about 400-words, and it will rank on Google. Things don’t work that way anymore.

What are keywords, you may ask?

Keywords are ideas that define your content or give the reader an idea of what your article is about. They are often the things that people search for often on google. Once you can include them in your article, it’ll be easier for it to rank.

There are several tools you can use to extensively search for keywords like Ubersuggest. It’s recommended that most website owners should go for long-tail keywords.

Provide rich and long content

If you’re hoping to rank with 300-word articles, think again.

If you’re searching for the right number of words for your article, search for a common theme on Google and look at the number of words in the articles that pop up in the SERPs. They are more than 1500 words, right? Then, yours should be too.

However, don’t focus on the length alone. You have to create an article that provides meaning and lots of value to visitors. That way, it’s easier for more people to share, your CTA to be clicked on, and your site visitors numbers to increase.

A long article only sends a signal to Google that your content is value-rich.

On-page SEO optimization

What is one-page SEO?

It simply shows you how to optimize your web pages. Things like meta-tags, subheadlines, URL slugs, headlines, etc. are part of on-page SEO.

To start this, your primary keyword should be in your headline. If possible, it should be at the beginning. Then, it should also be in your slug and one or more sub-headline.

Now, there has been lots of confusion as regards including the primary keyword in the body copy. The recommended standard is between 0.5 to 2.5 percent. Anything above this will make your article look like it has been stuffed with keywords.

Your primary and related keywords can be in your image alt text.

Off-page SEO

There is on-page and off-page SEO?

Yes, there is.

Off-page SEO is also referred to as off-site SEO, and it simply means optimizing your web pages outside the website. So, things like social media activity, influencer marketing, guest blogging, and brand mentions can enhance your site’s SEO and help it to rank.

Backlinks aren’t highlighted here, but generally, links are very important in SEO. When looking for links, look for them in well respected blogs and publications. Getting links from low quality sites with low authority can hurt your SEO.