How To Optimize Your Website For SEO And Conversions | Beginners' Guide 2021
Learning how to optimize your website for SEO and conversions is crucial for your site’s success. It’ll ensure your website is working exactly as hard as it should. If you have good SEO, you can attract more traffic and get more opportunities to convert potential customers.And a website optimized for conversions typically has better metrics, such as time on page and bounce rate, which means that Google might rank it higher.
The
following tips and strategies will teach you how to optimize your website for
both SEO and
conversions so you get the both of best worlds.
What is
SEO?
SEO
stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s the process of increasing your
website traffic through search engine results.
This
helps your website become more discoverable. When potential
customers search terms related to your brand, they’ll have a better chance of
discovering your website and becoming a customer.
Imagine
you have a fitness business. You offer dieting and workout tips on your
website.
You
also have an article about losing weight. With good SEO practices, a person
searching a keyword like “how to lose weight” might have a better chance of
finding that article—and therefore, your brand.
That’s
the power of SEO.
5 Reasons You Need to Optimize Your Website
There
are plenty of reasons to learn how to optimize for conversions and SEO in
tandem.
First
you need to know how they work together to create a leaner, more productive
website.
Let’s
look at five specific reasons to optimize your site immediately and to
continually optimize your site over time.
1. Make
your website useful for your specific audience
Marketers
sometimes feel as though they’re at odds with Google. The search engine
fails to rank their best content, for instance, or they see a huge drop in
traffic after an algorithmic update.
In reality,
though, your goals and Google’s are the same:
·
Serve up the best possible content for your audience
·
Create a positive website user experience
·
Prioritize content that offers significant value
You
just go about it in different ways. Google’s analyzing millions of websites,
while you’re analyzing your specific audience’s behaviors.
Google
uses more than 200
ranking signals to decide which pieces of content appear on the first page
of the search engine results. The algorithm pays careful attention to signs
that a particular web page will give searchers the information they seek.
When
you focus on SEO, you choose primary and latent semantic keywords related to
search intent. You write content that people love to read and make sure you
provide meta information to help Google better understand the copy.
If you
optimize your website for conversions, you focus on guiding visitors toward a
specific goal, whether it’s joining your email list or buying one of your
products. Just like Google, you want to give your audience exactly what those
consumers want.
Knowing
how to optimize your website for SEO and conversions simultaneously furthers
both of those goals and creates a better relationship between your site and the
search engines.
2. Grow
your organic traffic
The
average business spends about 1 percent of its total revenue on advertising. If
your business rakes in $1 million per year, you might spend $10,000 on
advertising.
While
that might seem like a small percentage, it adds up. Some industries, such as
retail, spend considerably more on ads.
Attracting
organic traffic through SEO, however, is free. You have to pay to develop and
promote the content, but that’s not nearly as expensive as pay-per-click.
When
you compare the close rate between searchers who arrive at your site via
organic search and those that come via paid ads, the results are
illustrative. Organic search closes at nearly 15 percent,
while paid search closes at less than 2 percent.
Invest
your time and, if necessary, money into growing your organic traffic. It might
take longer, but the results last longer and result in more conversions.
3.
Capitalize on existing traffic
When
people visit your website, you don’t want them to poke around and leave.
Instead, you want to make a lasting impression and encourage them to return.
Learning
how to optimize your website for conversions requires an understanding of the
user experience. Figure out how visitors navigate your site, whether they
scroll down the page, and how often they click on your calls
to action (CTAs).
If
someone signs up for your email list, you can contact them at a later date with
offers, incentives, and more. You can also encourage visitors to follow you on
social, visit your product pages, and read your blog posts.
Capitalizing
on existing traffic helps improve your conversion rate because a higher
percent of your organic traffic will convert. You know what offer your audience
will respond to and how to present it to them in an appealing way.
4.
Force your website to work harder
Anyone
can build a website — even a beautiful website — but far fewer can create a
website that reliably produces conversions. After all, the average conversion rate across all
industries is less than 2.5 percent.
You
want your audience to convert at much higher rates. To do so, you have to study
your audience closely and give them what they need and expect.
If
you’ve done the research and applied the data to your site, you can expect a
jump in conversion rates. The people who visit your site find what they need
quickly and appreciate your brand for providing it. Brand loyalty results.
SEO
always comes first, though. Without traffic, you can’t have conversions. Create
a site with valuable, sticky content and plenty of opportunities for visitors
to convert.
5. Give
your audience what they want and expect
Imagine
this scenario:
You
have an e-commerce site that sells shoes. A customer needs a new pair of
running shoes and conducts a Google search for the best shoes for runners.
You’ve written a long, in-depth blog post about choosing running shoes,
including brand recommendations and information for different types of runners.
The
visitor reads the article. At the end, you have a lead magnet that offers a
free sizing and fit chart for runners. All the visitor has to do is sign up for
your email list.
You
send the lead magnet immediately to the visitor. A few days later, you send out
a coupon code for your online store along with images of running shoes. The
customer realizes you have what meets his or her needs, and the discount
incentivizes an immediate sale.
As you
can see, SEO and conversion rate optimization work hand-in-hand. If you meet
your audience’s expectations and help them find what they want, you’ll secure a
customer.
HowTo
Optimize Your Website For SEO In 8 Simple Steps
To
start, you need to boost the SEO on your website to draw more traffic.
The following
steps will set you up for SEO success. You can then turn your focus to
conversions while continuing to update and release new content.
1.
Analyze all of your website data
One
piece of data by itself might not tell you anything, but when you collect lots
of data, you start to notice patterns.
If a
few people visit your site and fail to click on your CTA, you might not have a
problem.
However,
if a large percentage of visitors ignore your CTA, you might need to make some
adjustments.
User
behavior reports and Google
Search Console traffic data help paint a clear picture. User behavior
reports, for instance, show you how people behave once they land on your site,
while GSC data tracks key metrics, such as number of sessions, number of unique
sessions, bounce rate, and more.
Analyze
the data for specific patterns. Referral sources can tell you a lot about your
audience. How are people finding your site? Look for pages that get more
traffic and more conversions than others. Reverse-engineer that page’s success
to replicate it across your site.
2.
Conduct thorough keyword research
Years
ago, you could pick a keyword out of thin air, write a 300-word article, and
rank for that keyword the next day. SEO doesn’t work like that anymore.
Tools
like Ubersuggest help you find keywords
related to your business and niche. Use it to find long-tail keywords that fit
with your prospective customers’ user intent. Think about why they would search
for a particular keyword and what they would hope to find on a page about it.
Start
with a broad keyword. For instance, maybe you offer dog boarding, so you begin
with a keyword like “dog kennels.”
Ubersuggest
will provide you with a list of keywords that you can filter in several ways.
You’re looking for long-tail keywords you can use to attract a specific
audience.
Do this
over and over again as you create more pages for your site. Write long,
in-depth articles that provide as much information on the topic as possible.
3.
Produce long and value-rich content
According
to Buffer, the ideal
length for a blog post is 1,600 words.
That’s just a starting point, though.
Before
you decide on the optimum length for your content, Google your primary keyword
and visit the top 10 result in the SERPs. Are some of those pages longer than
1,600 words? Then yours should be, too.
Length
isn’t everything. However, it sends a signal to Google that you’re providing
more information. If lots of people spend a long time on that page — reading to
the very end — you’re more likely to rank higher.
4.
Optimize for on-page SEO
On-page
SEO tells you how to optimize your website when you’re
building specific pages. Factors like headlines, subheadlines, URL slugs, and
meta tags fall into this category.
Use
your primary keyword in your headline, preferably as close to the beginning as
possible. It should also appear in the slug and at least one subheadline.
Throughout the body copy, aim for .5 percent to 2.5 percent. Try not to go over
the higher end to avoid looking like a keyword stuffer.
Sprinkle
your primary and related keywords throughout your body copy, subheadlines, and
image alt text. Include plenty of context for each so Google accurately
understands what you’re talking about.
5.
Optimize for off-page SEO
Off-page SEO — also called
off-site SEO — refers to the ways in which you optimize your website via
external means. Guest blogging, social media activity, influencer marketing,
and brand mentions can all improve your site’s SEO.
We’ll
talk specifically about backlinks a little later, but links in general can make
a big difference in SEO. You don’t want to get links from small, low-authority
sites. They won’t help (and they can hurt). Instead, you want to target
well-respected publications when researching backlinks.
6.
Optimize the website for mobile
With
more and more people accessing websites via mobile devices, you don’t want to
leave those potential conversions out in the cold. Furthermore, Google has
launched the mobile-first index, which means you might
rank better if you focus on mobile friendliness.
Responsive
design offers the easiest solution. You can download free and premium WordPress
themes that have responsive design built in, which means you don’t have to
worry about adding any extra code.
7.
Speed up the pages
Page
speed matters when it comes to both SEO and conversions.
If you
visit a website that takes forever to load, you’ll likely click the “back”
button and look for something else. Similarly, if you’re filling out a form
that refuses to submit due to slow speed, you’ll eventually give up.
Google’s
PageSpeed Insights gives you valuable insight into how fast your site loads
across all devices and what specific things you can fix to make your site
faster.
8. Get
quality backlinks
Backlinks
are a prime factor in helping your website rank better.
When high-quality
sites link to yours, Google interprets the link as a signal of your
site’s credibility. As you build a solid backlink profile, your pages will
climb up the ranks.
Getting quality backlinks takes effort, but
you’ll see results. Consider emailing influencers and other blogs in your
niche. Share your article with them and point them to a page where you’ve
shared a piece of their content.
Can SEO
Improve Your Website Conversions?
Now
that we’ve covered improving your SEO, what happens to your conversions?
You
won’t see results right away. Rankings take time to build, especially with the
plethora of content that exists online, so you have to work hard to build
quality content, attract backlinks, and establish
credibility with Google.
However,
you should start preparing for conversions now. If you know how to optimize
your website, you can immediately see greater conversions even if you have low
traffic.
SEO
improves conversions by directing the right searchers to your content. If you
make a page’s purpose clear, Google can rank it accurately based on search
intent on the part of the consumer.
Additionally,
writing longer, more value-driven articles increases the chances of a visitor
converting. They recognize the value of what you’ve shared and become
intrigued. As long as you present them with an attractive offer, you increase
the chances of gaining conversions.
Optimizing
Your Website for Conversions – Improve the User Experience
User
experience simply means how people perceive your site relative to navigation
and finding what they want. A good user experience leaves the visitor satisfied
and appreciative.
To snag
more conversions, focus on the smallest details. For instance, examine your
homepage and identify every element, from your logo and top navigation bar to
the widgets in your sidebar. If you removed one of those elements, would you
harm the user experience?
If not,
get rid of it. Focus on driving your traffic toward the action you want people
to take.
Try
User Behavior Tools to Analyze What Needs Improvement
Guesswork
only goes so far when it comes to user experience. You might think an element
on the page is necessary, but user behavior reports don’t bear that out.
Running user behavior reports gives you unique
insights into what people do when they arrive on your website. Heatmaps, for
instance, show you where the most clicking activity happens so you can position
your most important elements on the page.
Conclusion
SEO can
prove extremely complex, but knowing the basics will give you a running start.
Begin
by collecting as much data as you can and conducting thorough research. Write
content geared toward your audience, but make sure it’s better than your
competitors’.
Create
separate campaigns for on-page and off-page SEO. Make sure your site loads
quickly on both desktop and mobile and that you’re attracting backlinks as much
as possible.
Then
figure out how to optimize your website for conversions so you don’t waste all
that good traffic.
Focus
on the user experience and the patterns
you detect through user behavior reports. Over time, you’ll see traffic and
conversions increase based on your hard work.
Furthermore,
even older content can continue to work hard for you. Don’t discount your
efforts as only relevant to the moment.
If you
write solid evergreen content, you can attract traffic — and generate
conversions — for years to come.
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