SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When you hear of SEO it means actions taken against a website and/or search engines in order to make it appear on the highest possible rank on the result list of a related search query. Some popular search engines people use on a day-to-day basis are Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Whether you are in the stages of developing your website, or if you are planning the foundations to build one soon, SEO is vital for your website’s health and growth.

So how is this done? 🤔 Here are a few examples.

As a web designer, I often include SEO services with my web design packages. SEO is a journey, and it’s rare to see improvements overnight, but there are many things you can tweak today to improve your SEO such as ensuring your website is easy to read for these search engines, applying proper page structure to resolve your website’s loading speed, resolving the flow of a website, and much more…

Follow these best SEO TIPS to start improving your website’s metrics today!

1, Ensure all of your images are properly labelled in keywords. (For example: Name an image file to keywords related to your business such as “chicago_newborn_photographer”, instead of it being labelled “img_54234”)

2, All images have an alt-description added to them. (Tip: An alt-description is like explaining the image to someone who is blind. Try to be as descriptive as possible.)

3, There should only be one H1 (header) tag on each web page.

4, Every link on the website works properly. (No 404 error pages)

5, Make sure your website is connected to Google Console. (https://console.cloud.google.com/)

6, Focus on quality copy content for your site. ✅

7, Compress your images to help with the load speed. (Tip: For PNG files check out https://compresspng.com/)

8, Ensure keyword-rich copy is on the website.

9, Secure your site with HTTPS. 🔐

10, Connect your website to Yahoo and Bing. 💻

11, SSL security settings.

12, Remove unnecessary information from your website.

13, Add internal and external links within your site.

14, Use Pinterest and other social media platforms. 💃

15, Ensure that there is a Page Title and Description for every page.

16, “Mobile-First Indexing” basically means Google is all about mobile these days. Since most people are browsing on their phones, you’ve got to make sure your website looks and works great on mobile—otherwise, it’s not going to rank well.

17, Incorporate tools like ChatGPT or Surfer SEO for keyword research, topic generation, and competitive analysis.