Step 4: Optimise your code<\/p>\n

While writing content for people is very important, you need to pay attention to how you optimise your website\u2019s code so search engines can read your content too.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at how you can properly optimise your site\u2019s code and help your site rank higher in search engines:<\/p>\n

SEO-friendly URL structure<\/strong><\/p>\n

URLs are another important element but often overlooked. If your URLs have gibbering numbers and punctuation marks then, just like users, search engines will have a hard time understanding what that page is about.<\/p>\n

Here are a few things to keep in mind if you want to achieve an SEO-friendly site URL structure:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Consolidate your www and the non-www domain versions.\u00a0<\/strong>If you type in www.example.co.uk into your browser and then you type in just example.co.uk and the \u201cnon-www\u201d version does not redirect to www.example.co.uk, that means that search engines are seeing two different sites which is considered duplicate content. This isn\u2019t effective for your overall SEO efforts as it will dilute your inbound links, as external sites will be linking to www.example.co.uk and example.co.uk. So what you need to do is to set your preferred domain, whether with or without www, and\u00a0implement 301 redirects\u00a0for all other versions of your URL which will redirect visitors to your preferred domain. It doesn\u2019t matter which URL version you choose as long as you are consistent with it.<\/p>\n

Avoid dynamic URLs.\u00a0<\/strong>Dynamic URLs are ugly and don\u2019t say anything about what\u2019s on your page. So instead of a www.example.co.uk\/?p=3355474 you might want to use static URLs like www.example.co.uk\/topic-name. Descriptive URLs allows visitors to figure out what the page is about just by looking at the link.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Use canonical tags.\u00a0<\/strong>These tags tell search engine bots which pieces of content are the original and which are duplicates. This way the bot will pass over the duplicates and only index and give link credit to the primary piece. To specify the canonical URL, you need to add the rel=\u201dcanonical\u201d tag into your URL.<\/p>\n

Create an XML sitemap.\u00a0<\/strong>Sitemaps are like a roadmap for search engines. They include every page on your site, making sure search engine bots don\u2019t miss anything. Once your XML sitemap is created, you should submit it to\u00a0Google Search Console\u00a0and\u00a0Bing Webmaster Tools\u00a0so that search engines can crawl and index your website more easily.<\/p>\n

The title tag<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each of your web pages needs to have a unique title tag that describes what that page is about.\u00a0Pay attention to the title tag\u00a0because it\u2019s what people see in search engine results when they\u2019re searching for your products or service. In addition, the title tag also shows up in posts shared on social media sites like Facebook, for example. So you not only need to include your main keyword in the title but you also have to make it enticing enough to convince people to click.<\/p>\n

So, when you write your title tags, make sure you:<\/p>\n

Have a unique title tag for each page<\/p>\n

Include the name of your product or the main topic you\u2019re covering on the page<\/p>\n

Keep your title tag between 42 and 60 characters, including spaces. To make sure your title isn\u2019t cut off, try not to go over 60 characters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The meta description tag<\/strong><\/p>\n

The meta description needs to summarise the content on your page because this too will show up in search engine results together with the title tag. While it won\u2019t help you rank higher, a well-written meta description can have a big impact on whether users decide to click through or not so it should be written to \u201csell\u201d.<\/p>\n

Step 5: Technical setup<\/p>\n

Set up and verify Google Analytics<\/strong><\/p>\n

You need to measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and see how your website is performing. How many visitors a month is your site attracting? Which pages are the most popular? How much time are they spending on your site? These are just a few of the things you can uncover by using an analytics tool so make sure you set up your analytics software now so you can start collecting data right away.<\/p>\n

Google Analytics is a very good choice because it\u2019s free, easy to set up and use, and provides loads of useful\u00a0information about your visitors\u2019 behaviour on your site.<\/p>\n

Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n

The webmaster tools products from Google and Bing allow you to go more in depth and see things like: who is linking to your site, what search terms are sending visitors to your site, whether your site has any issues that need to be fixed quickly, and more.<\/p>\n

Install an SEO plugin<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you have a WordPress website, make sure you install an SEO plugin to help you optimise your content. One of our favourites is\u00a0Yoast. Why? Because it\u2019s free, easy to use and packed with powerful features. Having an SEO plugin like this installed will help you meet all of the recommended SEO criteria with ease.<\/p>\n

Robots.txt<\/strong><\/p>\n

The robotx.txt file contains instructions for search engines as to which pages of your site to ignore during the crawl. Basically, this file includes a list of commands, such as allow and disallow, that tells web crawlers which web pages they can or cannot retrieve. So, if a URL is disallowed in your robots.txt files, that URL and its contents won\u2019t appear in Google search results.<\/p>\n

Make sure you\u2019re not stopping search engines from indexing your site. While some prefer to use the \u201cdisallow: \/\u201d command while their site is under construction, it\u2019s important to remember to remove it once the site is ready to receive visitors.<\/p>\n

Step 6: Earn links<\/p>\n

Links are an important ranking factor and continue to be a great indicator of what content is relevant and important.<\/p>\n

Today your link building strategy should be about\u00a0earning<\/em>\u00a0links, which you can do by:<\/p>\n

Creating purposeful content (for example, guest posts or infographics) that is so useful and engaging that people want to link to it and share it with others.<\/p>\n

Promoting your content so that it reaches the right people who will be motivated to link to your content and share it online.<\/p>\n

Building relationships with influencers and convincing them that your content is of a high enough quality to share.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re using our Search Engine Optimiser, make sure to check the \u201cIncrease Popularity\u201d tab. It will not only tell you where your links are coming from but will also show you where competitors are getting links from so you can get a good idea about what other websites might be interested in linking to your site too.<\/p>\n

Step 7: Things to check post-launch<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Test usability<\/strong><\/p>\n

Usability is super-important for SEO and it also helps keep your visitors happy. Great user experience refers to a site that is easy to navigate through, with information that\u2019s easy to find and useful.<\/p>\n

Check to make sure there aren\u2019t more steps than necessary in the checkout process and that it\u2019s easy for visitors to navigate through your site, to buy a product and to contact you.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Test your site speed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Site speed is an increasingly important ranking factor, so don\u2019t forget to test your site\u2019s speed and improve loading times if necessary. If the speed is less than 90, you will need to make some changes such as optimising and compressing images, and loading scripts after your website\u2019s main content, wherever possible.<\/p>\n

At this time having a web developer is useful as you can send them a link to the site speed report and ask them to follow instructions supplied by Google in order to increase your pages\u2019 loading time.<\/p>\n

Check your mobile website<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having a website that works properly on all devices \u2013 desktops, tablets and smartphones \u2013 is extremely important. With\u00a0mobile devices now driving 56% of traffic to top sites\u00a0and with mobile-friendliness now a ranking factor, you need to make sure that your site is mobile-ready and that there aren\u2019t any issues.<\/p>\n

For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at: <\/strong>Social Media Marketing India,<\/strong><\/a> Internet Marketing India,<\/strong><\/a> Search engine marketing India,<\/strong><\/a> Internet Marketing Company India,<\/strong><\/a> Internet Marketing Company New Delhi.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Step 4: Optimise your code While writing content for people is very important, you need to pay attention to how you optimise your website\u2019s code so search engines can read your content too. Let\u2019s look at how you can properly optimise your site\u2019s code and help your site rank higher in search engines: SEO-friendly URL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,14,13,27,12],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1806,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/1806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webigg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}