Search engine optimization (SEO) and an optimized website are now more important than ever as more and more people hop online to do their shopping.
This is due in part to the ongoing pandemic, which has caused some people to avoid going out in public as much as possible. It’s also due to varying social distancing rules and restrictions which have made life for outside B2B and B2C sales reps extremely challenging. As such, when businesses need to buy something, they’ll often first go online and perform a search. If your company website isn’t ranking in the top 10 search results, you probably won’t get any traffic. We want to share with you five tips that can help improve the organic rankings and SEO of your company website in 2021.
Avoid Duplicate Content
The various Google algorithms dislike duplicate content. They view it as a “low-quality user experience” and can penalize websites that have it. What is duplicate content? Simply put, it’s the exact same content (word-for-word) that you can find elsewhere on the internet. This goes for every single page on your website. Some businesses, such as realtors and franchisees, will use “syndicated content” for their company blogs and website pages. For example, the corporate offices will often write a blog post and then send it out via email for their hundreds of independent realtors to post on their blog. While a regularly updated blog is excellent for SEO—when you have the same exact blog post as 100 other realtors across the country do, Google considers this a poor user experience. As such, your blog, blog post, or the entire website can get penalized by the various Google algorithms. If you can’t write your own high-quality content, consider hiring a professional copywriter to do so for you.
Low Quality or “Spammy” Links
One of the most important factors determining how high your website ranks in the organic search results is the amount and quality of links coming in from other websites. Many companies realize this and will hire “#1 SEO Expert” fly-by-night SEO agencies to perform the work. The problem with this is that they will often get low-quality links, resulting in their websites getting penalized. Poor quality links are ones that are coming from websites that are not relevant or offer no value to the end-user. Try to only hire reputable SEO providers—or do the work yourself. Many guides on the internet will show you exactly how to build high-quality links into your company website so that you can out-rank your competitors and drive more traffic and sales.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is when you add the same keyword repeatedly on your web page to try and get Google to rank the site higher in the organic search results. Google considers this to be a low-quality user experience and can penalize you for it. Try to only use your primary keyword on a web page once or twice. To supplement that, you can try to add variations of the same keyword. For example, for the keyword “green widgets,” you can add “widgets that are green in color” as an alternative keyword. When you write your website content—don’t write it in an attempt to fool Google as it uses artificial intelligence and is much smarter than any human being. Write your content instead for the human reader, and Google will reward you accordingly.
Poor Quality Content
Content that is not relevant or has a ton of grammar and spelling mistakes is considered low quality by Google. Many companies will hire the cheapest writers they can find online to write their blog posts—this is a huge mistake—as you get what you pay for. Try writing your own content—it’s not as hard as it seems, and there are countless free tools out there that can help proofread and double-check your work for grammar and spelling. Grammarly offers a free tool that you can cut and paste your content into to check to see if it’s okay. They will then provide suggestions on how to improve what you wrote.
Non-Mobile Responsive Website
There are many websites out there that won’t work well on today’s modern smartphone. This is often due to the phone having a small screen size and cannot be displayed correctly on a desktop or laptop computer. With over ½ of all Google searches performed on mobile phones, Google will show favor to websites optimized for mobile traffic. Many of the newer websites out there are “mobile optimized” and gain the benefit of traffic from both desktop and cell phone searches. To check if your site is optimized for mobile phones, Google put out a free mobile-friendly testing tool. Simply enter your website URL, and it will tell you if there are any problems and how to fix them.
SEO and Marketing Help in Raleigh
SEO isn’t rocket science. It’s more of a 100-mile marathon to the finish line. By incorporating the above tips, you can help create a better user experience on your website. This is the core of SEO and how you can get your site to rank higher in the organic search results and drive more traffic to your business. To learn more about how AlphaGraphics of Downtown Raleigh can help with your content graphic design and marketing needs, you may
email us,
request a quote, or call us at
(919) 832-2828.