Search engine optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be! You can boost your SEO instantly with a few simple steps. The three steps below are a recipe for SEO that gets results. No matter what changes Google makes, no matter what platform you use, if you follow these steps, your website will shine and most importantly, rank:
1. Use only web-sized images on your website
Speed is the name of the game when it comes to your website. If it’s slow to load, potential clients will be like “thank you, NEXT”. You only have three seconds to grab someone’s attention. THREE SECONDS!
Because of this, don’t let full-res images slow your business down. Use only web-sized images on your site to ensure fast loading times. (Don’t know how to resize images? It’s simple—just Google it.)
If you’re wondering if your website is slowing you down, run a speed test here.
2. Rename EVERY image on your website with specific keywords
Rename every image on your website with specific keywords. You are going to rename every single one with 7-10 keywords, each separated by a “-“.
Don’t stress too much over the term “keywords”, but do some research to find out what keywords will be most beneficial to your business. Take some time to really dive into who your target audience is and what they will search for to find you.
If you are like me and want to keep it simple, the best place to start is to sit down and make a list. Think of all the things you do and what you would type into a Google search to find your business. You’ll want to think of two types of words and phrases:
- The first set should be simple: what you do, your name + business name, your city, town, state, etc.
- For the second set of words, be more specific: think of descriptive, specific words that match your style, niche and business. Include venues + locations you frequent, and so on and so on.
Now that you have your list of possibilities, there are great free resources online such as SERPs and MOZ where you can view the search ranks of certain keywords to find the best ones to target.
Once you’ve decided which keywords to focus on, you are going to rename all of the images on your website. This may be easy for some and difficult for others depending on the platform you use.
If you’re a photographer, it’s easy to rename and resize images in Lightroom. Do not name them all the same thing. You want to use a variety of combinations, but always include your name,business name, and what you do, and separate each word with a “-“.
3. Manually crawl your website
Want to see quicker results? You need to take it a step further and manually crawl your website after renaming your images.
Google periodically crawls your website without you doing a thing. But if you want to see faster results, you need to learn how to crawl your website yourself. You can crawl either your entire website or specific pages from your Google dashboard. If you aren’t sure how to do it, just Google “how to crawl your website”. I manually crawl my website anytime I make updates.
After your crawl is complete, you can take it a step further and read the results. This is where Google will tell you about broken links or anything that could hurt your Google rank, so you can fix it! The Google search console is full of great information, so it’s worth taking some time to explore what it can do.
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Want to learn more about boosting your small business SEO? Get our Ultimate Guide to Small Business SEO here.
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