Table of Contents
Many websites are able to attain that one superpower: invisibility. Although this is a good thing for superheroes, a website can hardly benefit from it. You definitely do not want to invest a significant amount of time in the production of a website and to have no traffic on it.
The best option for preventing such a turn of events is SEO. In order to increase the probability of people finding your website, you should not make it difficult for search engines to find and categorize your content accurately.
Many newbies consider SEO to be too complicated and that they need years of experience to be able to practice it. Actually, the basics of SEO are about presenting your content in an optimal way, so that search engines and users have no problem understanding what it is about.
So, now we will move on to some of the basic steps you can take to create a good SEO fundation for your website – how to make it more visible, and surely, ameliorate your content for search engines.
Opt for Responsive WordPress Theme
The best way to create a good SEO foundation for your site is to go with a responsive theme. You definitely need your WordPress site to use a clean and optimized code, as well as a clever design plan.
Another reason why you should choose a responsive theme is the fact that non-responsive sites lose all mobile traffic, which nowadays accounts for about 60% of all internet traffic. The SEO experts from Online Marketing Gurus claim that using a non-responsive website in 2016 is just bad business, being that google will always prioritize a responsive website in mobile search. Also, by choosing a responsive theme you eliminate the hassle of updating and maintaining multiple sites. Furthermore, you will most likely be able to support new devices and screens in the future.
Choose a Great Name and Domain
Although the name of a domain is not a ranking factor, it is important in regard to SEO and social media marketing (SMM). The choice if keywords is crucial when it comes to picking a name for your domain. Names that contain frequently searched keywords are the best choice, as they are bound to drive traffic from powerful search engines.
Exact match domains (EMD) are favoured because they resonate the keyword phrase you are targeting fairly successfully?. However, they are not as beneficial as they used to be.
So, the keyword potential is not the only thing you should consider when choosing a suitable domain name. Additionally, think about the click-through rates on ads and SERP listings and opt for a premium keyword. This is because the ads that include a generic domain name and a keyword that is an exact match to the product work better than other common or uncommon domain names. Also, prime domain names are usually shorter, because that makes them easier to remember.
When it comes to choosing the actual domain, .com is most likely to be the safest? first? choice, as 75% of all websites use it, but it is not so easy to get. Consequently, a large quantity of new generic top-level domains was laucnhed. Nowadays, you are provided with an option to chose a domain that uses an extension as a part of the word or phrase. This usually makes the URL shorter and this is called domain hacking.
With this in mind, country TLDs like .me, .co, .be and so on are a perfect pick if you want your domain to convey a certain message.
However, keywords are not enough, and because of the commercial interest, it is wise to pick a brandable name. Google loves brands and your customers will find and remember your business more easily.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a set of tools that website owners, webmasters, web marketers and SEO professionals can use to observe the performance of their website in the Google search index.
A website owner should use Google Search Console to make sure that Google finds his business and shows it for the right searches. This console also points out if there are any errors on a website, so the owner can fix those mistakes and that his pages show up in search results.
The owner can use this console every time he creates a new page to see which terms lead people to his Google search result pages and then find the most successful pages on his website, focus on th and increase traffic on his website.
WWW vs NON-WWW
Once you register your site in Google search console you will be given a choice of preffered domain, which will be displayed in the results: www.site.com or site.com. The choice itself will have no effect on your actual SEO but it will rather ensure that google displays only one version of the site and that it doesn’t split the juice.
After you’ve chosen the preferred version you’ll need to setup a 301 redirect from one version to the other. This can be done in cPanel (if you are using it) or it can be done with Yoast SEO plugin. Whichever method you decide to go with, this part is crucial as it will ensure that all the links pointing to your site transfer their value to a single version, rather than dispersing it to two different ones.
WWW or NON-WWW is just a matter of personal preference and when you choose one, make sure that you stick to it and don’t change it.
