10 SEO Tips
Both content and technical SEO errors should be avoided in search engine optimization in large cities like New York City or Los Angeles. It is, therefore, better to check your website right away and make sure that the following typical errors do not occur.
1. Big pictures & long loading times
The good design of a website includes images that both visitors and search engines like. According to an SEO expert, it is extremely important that the size and resolution of the images are optimized for the web. Too many and too large images prolong the loading time of a website, which leads to the jump of potential visitors.
If the website is not loaded within three seconds, a third of all visitors jump off again – and instead visit a competitor’s page. Check the loading time with tools like PageSpeed Insights. There you will find numerous other tips for improving the loading speed.
Important: Optimize your websites so that the pages are loaded in three seconds at the latest!
2. Pictures without description
Pictures loosen up the content and offer readers added value, at the same time they are regarded as an important tool for search engine optimization. The problem: Google cannot (yet) fully recognize the content of the images and depends on a description. In order for your images to appear in Google Image Search, you must describe them accordingly.
Important: Name the pictures thematically correct and fill in the old, descriptions of the pictures by integrating suitable keywords!
3. No new content
Create and adhere to a plan for publishing new content. It does not have to be daily or weekly but should take place regularly. Write a few posts in advance and ensure high quality. What is important here is that the contributions must offer readers added value.
4. Avoid keyword stuffing
The use of suitable keywords continues to be one of the most important SEO criteria. Someone that searches for a vacation home on Long Island, expects Websites that are exactly about that topic. For New York City SEO, you need to be a bit smarter. Until a few years ago, many website operators stuffed their pages with keywords, which made readers suffer. The assumption that a more frequent naming of keywords represents better information is no longer valid for Google! Instead, the search engines punish the so-called keyword stuffing today by a worse ranking. No wonder. A text in which “vacation home for Long Island” appears in every second sentence contradicts any understanding of a good language style.
SEO Error: Avoid Keyword Stuffing!
5. No meta-information & missing call-to-action
Search engines display the meta-title and the meta-description in their hits. Make sure that the meta information for each page is filled in and encourages the reader to click. Use matching keywords and a call-to-action like “Learn more now!” or “Order cheap now!” to attract readers to your site.
Tip: Enter unique meta information for each page!
6. Multiple used Title Tags
The Title tag is the heading of a page and informs about the following content. Do not enter identical titles for the subpages of your website so that search engines can index the page correctly and identify relevant contributions.
Tip: Each subpage needs a unique title tag, in which at best the respective keyword appears.
7. Broken links
If links in the menu, text or footer refer to a goal that is no longer reachable, the value of the post is reduced. Search engines punish texts with dead links with a worse ranking.
Tip: Make sure that all set links are accessible. For content management systems like WordPress, there are plug-ins like Broken Link Checker that automatically find dead links.
8. No social media
Social media websites such as Facebook, Youtube or Instagram are some of the promising ways in which you can attract potential visitors to your website. This is not just important for places with a lot of buzz, like when you’re performing an LA SEO service, but in general. The complete waiver is considered an SEO error. You should at least be active in a network and post new posts there regularly.
Tip: In the first step, consider which social network makes sense for you. On Facebook, for example, you can link posts, post photos, and videos, while Instagram is for pictures only and YouTube for movies.
9. Analysis tools are not used
How do visitors get to your website? With which keywords do which contributions rank high? Where do the visitors come from? What devices do they use and how long do they stay on your site? Where do they get off? These and many other questions are answered by analysis tools such as Google Analytics.
Tip: Use website analysis tools and optimize the content using the information!
10. Wrong keywords
What are potential visitors looking for on your website? The aforementioned analysis tools, as well as the Google Keyword Planner and Google Suggestions, give you valuable information. This lets you know what potential readers or customers are searching the web for. So-called longtail keywords consist of three or more words and are considered particularly effective for long-term search engine optimization.
Bonus Tip: Avoid duplicate content
Search engines try to display the best content. If several pages on your website have identical content or if you write a text very similar to that of your competitors, this will lead to a worse ranking. Each page must have unique content.
Tip: Don’t copy texts, which would already violate copyright, and create unique content! It’s the only way to set yourself apart from the competition.
Tapping Into Untapped Potential
The big terms of our time are without a doubt Big Data, AI and Machine Learning. Many would like to get a piece of the big data cake, align their own business data-driven and thereby use the methods of machine learning. They want to process large amounts of data in the cloud and take advantage of artificial intelligence and chatbots to tap new, unknown potential.
However, with all the big words, which are usually associated with few concrete ideas on how to best use them in the business context, the most important basics are often forgotten. The assumption that data automatically adds value with a trusted vendor’s tool solution is unrealistic. In my opinion, three basic things are needed to work successfully with data:
- The tools of the trade: methodological knowledge about dealing with data
- Knowledge of the domain: In what context do the data occur and how are they interpreted?
- Targets: According to which target values do you optimize? What is important to have more success?
Goals are the fundamental basis for everything that follows. Every company sets itself goals such as increasing sales and growth. To ensure that these targets can be reasonably measured, incoming orders, sales and profits are documented and evaluated by Controlling.
In this context, the objective works very well in most companies. In the online sector, positive examples can be found above all in the e-commerce sector. This is where focused, data-driven work takes place, and there is a very precise idea of monetary goals.
However, if we look at digital environments beyond e-commerce, we end up in the area of content or corporate websites. There, websites or apps usually exist as an addition to the well-functioning offline business. Since digital products and services do not yet contribute to the critical part of business success in every company, objectives and a clear orientation are usually neglected here. But without target values, one cannot actively control a change process.
At this point, it should be carefully considered how, for example, a digital presence can expand the offline business in order to create added value. Which currency is valuable to us? These could be for example leads, newsletter registrations, downloads or constantly returning visitors.
It is not an easy task to think about the meaning of the provided platform and to define it in measurable goals. In addition, these measurable objectives must be accompanied by target values in order to provide a meaningful analysis.
Goals: the key to success
Clear goals with key figures and target values form the basis for data-driven work. Let’s take as an example the creation of a new blog post for this blog or Evesham SEO. We must have clearly defined why this blog exists and therefore also which goals it pursues and with which concrete target values we measure which key figures. At best, this should be part of the content strategy. Only with goals can we begin to evaluate target groups, adapt data sources and media budgets, test new formats, text lengths and images in a structured way and thus continuously improve ourselves.
This requires, as described above, objectives, domain knowledge and methodological knowledge of data structuring.
- Objectives: to know whether the content created contributes to the success of the project
- knowledge of the domain: to formulate test hypotheses, for example
- Methodological knowledge about data: to cluster data, for example, and to evaluate these clusters as well.
The bounce rate is not a KPI
Overarching goals should be defined in discussions or workshops with product owners or product managers. The central question in these conversations must be: “Why does the website/app/campaign exist? This question does not sound complicated, but it requires some critical thinking and intensive discussion. Overarching objectives should be SMART.
You should now define more specific goals for each higher-level objective. These goals represent more specific strategies that are used to achieve an overarching goal. An objective can have multiple goals.
The next step is to define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the goals. These key figures help to evaluate performance on the basis of the goals set. It is important to exchange information with the data managers in order to define the KPIs together. The core content of this step is to make the existing goals measurable on an abstract, technical level and to answer the question “What key figures can I use to map my goals? In addition to knowledge of the technical product environment, tool knowledge is also required to determine measurable KPIs. However, not every key figure is suitable as a KPI. The bounce rate is a number that cannot be considered a KPI. It is well suited as a supporting key figure, for example in the area of landing pages, but it is not meaningful enough to evaluate corporate success. This is mainly due to the way in which a bounce is measured. This is measured if the user’s visit includes only one hit, i.e. only one piece of information (e.g. a landing page) is sent to the Analytics server and no further information is transmitted during the user’s session. So a single hit decides whether the visit is counted as a bounce or not. In my opinion, this information content is not sufficient to be considered a KPI.
Target values must be set meaningfully in a context
The next step is to define targets for the individual KPIs. These are very important to determine success or failure. Let’s assume, for example, that a lead campaign generated 80 leads. Is that good or bad? This question can be answered with previously defined target values.
You can derive target values from historical data. (How well have lead campaigns performed with what budget in the past?) If there is no historical data, one should try to define target values using assumptions. An experienced partner can help.
The result should be a table that has a similar form to the following one. This was filled with an example strand for an objective.
This process requires some effort. However, it is essential for successful data-driven work to write down these goals and then optimize them in the ongoing process. Of course, objectives and target values are not set for eternity but should be reviewed at regular intervals and adjusted if necessary.
With this foundation, we can begin to align our tracking specifically to these goals, manage campaigns accordingly, and apply analytical methods of machine learning to optimize metrics.