Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge buzzword these days and important part of your website. SEO is the practice of optimizing your site to ensure that your natural traffic (or traffic from search engines) is as high as possible. [Definition paraphrased from Wikipedia.] A lot of peole put a lot of importance into SEO, as it will, in theory, result in more visitors to your website.
I am not an SEO expert but I do know a few things that can help your site rank a little bit higher. Here are some basic SEO tips:
- Use the ‘Title’ and ‘Alt’ boxes when inputting content into your website. You know those boxes on your site that pop up when you’re putting a link or image into your site that you ignore? Use them! They’re not only good for SEO, they help your site be accessible to people with disabilities, and that’s a really good thing.
- Use an SEO plugin. My favourite one is WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast. Install it and use it, for every post and page you write.
- Give your image files a descriptive name. Search engines look at everything on your site, including your file names. Don’t name your images DSC_1084.jpg (you know, the name your camera gives them), give them a name like golden_retriever.jpg. Obviously, the name should describe the subject of the image.
- Write great content, regularly. Blogging is an excellent tool to help your SEO. Don’t get too caught up in trying to put keywords into your content. Just write great content, and do it regularly. I always tell people to blog at least twice a month, but weekly is even better. Every time you add new content to you blog, search engines have to come back and re-index your site, which is a very good thing.
- Use WordPress as your blogging platform or content management system. WordPress is super SEO friendly, so you’ve already got a step up by using it.
If you want more help with SEO or want someone to do all this for you, consider hiring a pro to do it for you.
Kate Moore Hermes 