Having an SEO friendly website means designing and developing it in a way that makes it search-engine friendly. Doing so ensures that search engines can crawl each page on the website efficiently, interpret the content, and index it. At Them You & Me, we don’t just design websites – we design SEO friendly websites.
This is a hands-on exercise for you to check how your website appears online today. Let’s look at your website the way Google does. Curious?
1. Open a new incognito window
2. In the Google search tab, type site: yourdomain.com
Now, let’s look at everything separately.
3. Google looks at your title – not the title on your page, but what is called the title tag or meta title.
“The title tag has been called the single most important on-page SEO element, and the most important on-page SEO factor.” – Neil Patel
There is no magic number to avoid being cut off by the SERPs. In any case, write your title tag within 60 characters, the optimal length. Google typically displays the first 50–60 characters of a title tag. However, the exact limit is based on a 600-pixel container. This measures the character-width. For instance, some letters like ‘i’, ‘j’ and ‘f’ take up less space. Therefore, so more characters may be accommodated in the tag, compared to letters like ‘w’, ‘m’, and ‘p’. You could use Counting Characters, a Google SERP preview tool to optimize your page’s appearance on Google SERPs.
Remember that meta titles are highly valuable as they introduce your website at first glance. This is what the user will see when your page appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs) as in the picture above.
Tip: Each page is unique. So, give a separate title to every page on your site. Add your company name.
4. Let’s look at your meta description
The Meta Description describes the displayed page. This description has an emotional impact that enhances the user experience and can make the difference between a person clicking or not clicking on your page.
For an SEO friendly website, you need to think ‘what is my unique selling point’. No one knows your business and your website better than yourself. You should be able to pinpoint what makes your business unique and differentiate yourself amongst your competitors, also displayed on the same page. Add a clear Call to Action to entice your audience to click: Contact us today. Find out more, Request a free consultation, Call us now.
Tip: Always manually add your meta description. If not, the search engine will scan the page and display whatever content it deems relevant. Often, it is not user-friendly and reads wrongly with numbers and […] in the sentence.
5. Now that you understand better what is what and the role each plays in SEO friendly websites, think keywords.
You need to set things aside and identify 1 keyword ideally per page. Each page of your website mentions something specific: homepage, services, about us, blog, contact, etc. Your keyword should be just as unique as your page.
The right keywords are key and they can direct relevant traffic to your website. Check our top 5 keyword research tools to plan your SEO friendly website.
Ideally, mention your keyword in your URL, SEO title tag and your meta description. Make sure that the content of your page is relevant and includes the selected keyword in the right way.
Tip: Do not resort to keyword stuffing. You are writing for the audience, not Google.
When you know how to look at your website the way Google does, you’ll probably discover areas in which your website needs work. You are now aware of the importance of writing the correct meta titles and meta description and choosing which keyword should be used for which page. Put your research hat on!
2020 is around the corner so make time today to fix a few things for the best possible start. If you need a detailed audit and you want us to review or implement the onsite SEO strategy for your website, contact us today.
Check our website to see how else we can help you with digital marketing.
