How's your SEO strategy?

If you’re like many others, when you hear the words ‘improve your SEO’ you either have no idea what that means or you’ll roll your eyes at me.

Never fear though. There’s no reason to be intimidated by something that’s really fairly easy. No really. It’s not hard to improve your SEO. What’s hard is that you have to invest time and then invest more time while you wait.

Yep. Wait.

Here’s the thing with SEO. There is no magic button, no “one and done” task or single approach you can do to improve your SEO. The ‘secret sauce’ is to simply put in the time and effort and then be patient while continuing to put in more time and effort on another part. Don’t stop. Ever.

Breaking it down. How does SEO work?

SEO is a fancy way of setting up your website for search engines such as Google so the search engine can find what they need and tell others what your website is about.

The only way Google knows what your site is about is through its content. Content can be along the lines of text, video, and images. But not just any content, quality content.

A little louder for those in the back: QUALITY content.

Quality content simply means that the content you are putting out there is better than other content about the topic.

Search engines crawl through your website for key pieces of data. They then give your pages different rankings based on the quality of the content, how trustworthy the website is, and the popularity of the site.

Here are 3 ways to improve your SEO.

1. Articles and content-heavy pages
   Create articles and write about what your customers what to know about – not what you think they want to know about. That means do some research. What are they asking questions about? What do they need help solving? Show how your product or service solves that problem. Remember, people searching in Google are asking Google a question. The search results are what Google thinks the answer could be, you want your answer to be the best one.
2. Structured data
   Code in a specific format that search engines can understand is called structured data. Search engines use this code as part of their algorithms and use it to change how the page is displayed in the search results. Have you seen some search results that have reviews, pictures, recipes, in-stock, or prices? That’s all using structured data. There are literally 100s of different types of structured data and not all will apply to you.
3. Alt Text
   Pretend you’re telling someone on the phone what is happening in a picture. They can’t see it, so you have only your words to describe it so they can create their own picture in their head. That’s what alt text is. Make sure your images and video have alt text of a sentence or two that describes what’s happening. Not only does this help search engines and your SEO, but it also is essential for web accessibility. Be explicitly inclusive by using alt text on EVERY image. If you add a new image or replace one, update the alt text.

Of course, there are many other things you can do to improve your SEO.

Let’s all do these really well first. I mean really well! Then work on other strategies.

Do these three things. Keep doing them. Be patient. Do them again.

These are key components to a solid SEO strategy that every business website must-have.