If you are venturing off to create your own local business website for your company, there are a few things that you should know before starting.
In this post, we are going to go over some of the best tips and tricks you can use to make sure your website is visible on Google and other search engines.
These are just some of the techniques and strategies that we use for our clients.
#1. Pick Keyword-Rich Domain Name
First of all, if you’re not quite sure what a domain name is, it’s just another name for your website address. A keyword-rich domain name will contain part (or all) of the keyword phrase that you would like to rank for. Let’s use an example…
If you’re a roofing company in Phoenix, you’d want to show up on Google when people search “phoenix roofing” or “phoenix roofing company”. An ideal domain name would be one that has those keywords in it (example: Phoenix-Roofing.com, PhoenixRoofingCompany.com). Because these domain names have the exact keyword phrases that you are going after, you’ll be able to accelerate your SEO results.
Just take a look at the domains currently ranking on the first page of Google for your target keyword phrases. Do their domains contain keywords? If so, it may be a good idea to implement it in your strategy. If you decide not to, you may have to be more aggressive with other aspects of SEO, such as link building.
#2. Use Header Tags On Website
The way your website is structured and coded plays a huge role in how you rank. Many people who use the website builders by GoDaddy or other “website building tools” will spend hours and hours making their website appearance look perfect. But Google doesn’t care about your website appearance, it cares about the code.
A large majority of our clients come to us with websites that were built by these website-building tools. We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but 9 out of 10 times we have to get rid of what they’ve done because the code is horrific and not search-engine friendly.
Google is just a robot. It’s an algorithm. It looks at the code of your website, and that is how it determines what your website is about and where your website will rank.
The proper way to structure and code your site would be through H1, H2, and H3 tags. These are known as “header” tags, and Google looks at your header tags to determine what your site is about.
- Your H1 tag should always contain the main keyword that you’d like to rank for. So for example, if you wanted to rank for “phoenix roofing”, then you would want to at least have “Phoenix Roofing” in an H1 tag.
- Your H2 tag should be used as sub-headings to split up your content. Your H2 tag should also contain the target keyword phrase that you’d like to rank for.
- Your H3 tag, although not always necessary, can be used to break down your H2 tag further.
Using header tags properly is something that many sites fail to do. You can easily get an edge on the competition if you utilize header tags on your own website.
#3. Keyword Density
Some people claim that keyword density “doesn’t really matter anymore”. Well, we have had other experiences and our clients get amazing results when we ensure proper keyword density on their websites. Keyword density is still alive and well, and is something very important if you are looking to make your website more visible in the search engines.
If you are not familiar with what keyword density is, it is simply the number of times that you repeat your desired and target keyword phrase on your website.
Going back to the “Phoenix roofing” example. You are going to want to repeat your keyword phrase a couple of times throughout the content of your website. On a 400-word page, you may want to try to fit that exact keyword phrase in there three to five times.
Keep in mind, that when using the keyword density strategy, it’s more important to keep your content “readable” by visitors to your site. Do not overdo the keyword density on your site if it is going to make it sound unnatural. This may result in an over-optimization penalty.
We hope that these tricks will help you with your website. The above tricks are just some of the methods that we use to get our clients’ websites to the top of the search engines.