How to improve your site's SEO
Google uses over 200 ranking factors to assess websites. Note that Google has never publicly listed their ranking criteria, these factors have been extensively researched. SEO starts with these basics:
Metadata for every page
Page title
Arguably the most crucial SEO element, your page title shows as the clickable link in search results. As an HTML tag in your site's code, it should be 60 characters or less and contain descriptive phrases about your business, including your location if relevant, and your business name at the end.
Meta description
Probably the second most important aspect of SEO, your meta description can appear under your page title in search results. Also an HTML tag, it should be 160 characters maximum and use natural language to describe the page's content.
Website speed
Page load speed
Optimise your images and database for speed to ensure your pages load quickly. Google prefers to direct users to fast-loading pages.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure a page's loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. They reflect the real-world user experience. Achieving good Core Web Vitals will help to ensure a great user experience and improve a site's search success.
Domains and URLs
Short Domains are better
As well as indicating the age of a site (because the shorter Domains are harder to get now) a long Domain may hurt your visibility.
Accidental ‘duplicate’ homepage links
When linking back to your homepage, avoid using /index.html or similar variations in the URL. This practice can lead to Google perceiving duplicate content and penalising your site as a result. The best approach is to simply use /.
Single primary URL
If you have multiple URLs for your website, pick a primary URL and redirect others to it, including a non-www version of each one, to avoid duplicate content issues.
HTML
H1, H2 tags
‘H’ HTML tags define headings and subheadings. They indicate the structure of content on your site. You should only use one <h1> per page, but after that, focus on maintaining a clear hierarchy, ensuring headings follow a logical order (e.g. do not skip from <h1> to <h3>).
UL and LI tags
Content that is easy to read is favoured by Google. Use unordered lists (<ul>) or ordered lists (<ol>) with list items (<li>) that make your content easier to read.
Use alt tags
Using alt tags to describe the image's content helps provide context, informing search engine crawlers, and allowing them to index images correctly.
Sloppy HTML
A lot of HTML/CSS validation errors may indicate a low-quality site.
Site content and structure
Regular updates
Ensure your blog or news section is updated at least monthly with fresh content to appeal to Google's search algorithm.
Descriptive links
Use descriptive text for internal links (“Shop for widgets now”) instead of generic phrases like "Click here."
Keyword density
Keyword density is the frequency of a word or phrase in your content compared to the total number of words on your page. While probably becoming less important as bots get better at "understanding" content, it’s still important to clearly signal your content’s main topics to search engines. Low densities make it harder for search engines to understand your page's topic. Excessive keyword density is a negative factor because it can indicate "keyword stuffing".
Broken links
Broken links and other errors can be a sign of a neglected website, downgrading your overall SEO. Use a crawling tool to identify broken links, and if you ever change a page’s URL make sure that the old URL redirects to the new one.
Site map
Submitting a site map to Google's Webmaster Tools helps Google understand your website's structure, ensuring all your pages are indexed.
Inbound links to your site
Authoritative links
Google considers very high-traffic sites to be authoritative on their subject matter. As a result, a link from a popular site will boost your site's authority, which is also known as PageRank. This was the foundation of Google's search algorithm.
Bad neighbourhoods
Sites that Google considers spammy or low-authority, such as link farms, are considered bad neighborhoods. If your site is linked to these sites, its authority will be negatively impacted. Therefore, be careful when choosing where to place links that promote your site.
The one big idea at the heart of SEO
Search engines change their algorithms regularly, but the goal remains the same - to serve high-quality content first. Google’s short definition of high-quality focuses on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Demonstrate these things and you are doing the right thing. Look for shortcuts or “SEO hacks” and you probably are not.