How to Build SEO Into Your Website

Search engine optimization (SEO) should always be on your mind when developing or renovating an existing website, whether new or established. SEO doesn’t have to be difficult – in fact there are numerous simple changes you can make that will radically increase its ranking potential.

A web page appears different depending on who’s viewing it; users see images, colors and text with formatting while search engines see only text which determines its purpose.

Search engines rank pages according to two metrics: relevancy and authority. You can utilize qualitative content principles and technical improvements to increase relevance and authority of your pages, but in the end it all comes down to words on a page.

Keyword research is an excellent way to start matching the content on your website with what people are searching for on search engines, providing guidance and setting the tone for what will eventually appear online. It will also give your planning team direction as they craft the site content strategy.

Once you have an outline for the content on your site, it’s time to create the pages that make up its structure. This includes blogs, new pages and existing page content that must be improved for SEO purposes.

At this stage, it’s wise to create an itemized list of tasks and an estimated timeline for completion. Since you likely won’t rank for all your targeted keywords instantly if they are highly competitive, it is vitally important that stakeholders know this timeline from the outset of this process.

Based on the size and scope of your work, it may be beneficial to break it up into more manageable tasks and assign them accordingly within your team. This will keep everyone on task and help meet deadlines more easily.

As you complete each task, ensure to track its progress and provide regular updates to stakeholders. This can demonstrate the impact of your efforts and foster trust between all involved.

Make no mistake about it, SEO is a long-term process. Even with all your best efforts in place, it can take months before your site ranks higher in search results. This is due to search engines needing time to index your site as well as assess your content against other sites targeting similar keywords. Tracking content progress over time is the best way to ensure you’re making the most out of your SEO efforts – using various online tools you can monitor it to assess any necessary improvements or metrics to evaluate success of SEO initiatives.