Image courtesy of sarah b @sixthcitysarah
In the 1987 movie The Princess Bride, a climactic scene features the “Machine.”
It’s a gear-operated torture device that sucks the life out of those strapped into it. With pain levels ranging from 1 to 50, each level takes away the same number of years. Yikes!
The modern version of the Machine is your website.
Say what?!
Websites can drain the life out of you. Think about the countless hours spent creating, revising, writing, adding, and updating.
And then there are the questions that haunt business owners:
Is my messaging strong?
Are my images high-quality?
How are my call-to-actions?
Am I speaking to my target market?
Is it simple to navigate?
Are my products and prices current?
Should I post that cat meme?
And the most overlooked question:
Is my website easily found on search engines?
If you want to attract more traffic (uh, potential customers), you need high search engine rankings like you need shovels at a horse convention.
That’s why many businesses have a love/hate relationship with the Googles of the world. Algorithms… H1 headers… Meta descriptions… Robot crawlers… it’s enough to make you nostalgic for the Yellow Pages, back in the days when you played Ms. Pac Man and rented videotapes.
Improving your search engine rankings can feel as if you're climbing Mount Everest. How do I get to the top of this freakin' page??? And a high ranking is critical because people won't filter through forty-seven pages of results to find your lovely website.
So how do you climb up those rankings?
Use the right words the right way
To attract the right eyeballs, think in terms of strategic words and phrases. These should be high-volume, relevant words your target market types into their search bars.
But how do you find those words? What kind of crystal ball will give those answers?
Google “Keyword Tools” and you’ll be off to the races. There's a lot of tech at your fingertips that can do the heavy lifting for you.
Once you’ve got your million-dollar list of power words, spread ‘em liberally throughout your site, like tossing candy from a Christmas parade float, focusing especially on headlines, section headers, and blog titles.
Get the behind-the-scenes stuff right
The goal is to increase your search rankings, not decrease them. So here’s your math lesson for the day: Search rankings > Pretty Pictures.
Your search rankings will decrease if your site loads slowly (time to compress those images!) or if you have broken links (uh, that link from 5 yrs ago leads to a 501 error page).
That’s why it’s crucial to describe both your pages and images in your behind-the-scenes meta descriptions.
If you don’t know what this means or how to do it, ask your website designer. Or look it up on YouTube. It’s a relatively simple act that causes search engines to look at your site and shout, “I likey!"
Build the backlinks
A backlink is when another website creates a link that points to your site.
Why would they do that? Because you’re offering something of value, a big pot of skittles at the end of a magic rainbow. All of your effort in writing that blog or creating that video paid off! You’ve got a fan club in the form of a hyperlink.
When search engines see backlinks to your site, that’s a vote of confidence. That tells them: (1) You’re not a spammer and (2) You’re not a fake.
Instead, your website is the real deal filled with good stuff that can change the world. Or at least make it a better place.
Share on Social
Promoting your content on social platforms can increase your website traffic.
Think of your website as a hotel. Now think of social media as roads that lead to your hotel. If you build a 5-star hotel in the middle of the desert with no roads, you won’t be in the hotel business for long.
Build roads to your site.
When you drive traffic to your site, your numbers go up…
When your numbers go up, search engines notice…
When search engines notice, more customers find you…
And when more customers find you, then it’s time to buy that new pair of Lulu pants and throw a dance party.
Need Some Website Help?
Increasing your search engine rankings doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a continuous process, but it will pay off.
We can help! Whether it’s creating a new search-optimized website, providing strategy for your current one, writing blog articles, or producing videos.
Stop letting the Machine steal your time!
About Me
Hey, I’m Brian, co-founder of Genie Jar Digital. Born a Tar Heel but now a Virginian, I’m a father of five and the husband of one amazing lady. My family has a thing for Golden Retrievers. Given the right circumstances, I can do a smooth moonwalk on a slick kitchen floor. I recently released a young adult novel called The Jungle Within.
