Optimising for SEO and conversions is paramount to your site’s success. SEO ensures your site works as it should, attracting prospective customers and converting them. Hence, to boost website traffic and conversion rate, having good SEO is a must.
A site optimised to convert prospects also has more significant metrics than others, like bounce rate and time spent on a page, meaning Google will probably rank it higher in search engine result pages (SERPs).
So, learning to optimise your website for SEO can be vital to its success in today’s highly competitive digital world.
Read on to find the best strategies for SEO and conversions to get the best of both worlds.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO, increases a website’s traffic via search engine results. In other words, SEO helps your site become discoverable. When prospects search queries related to your company’s niche or brand, there’s a greater chance of them discovering your site and becoming paying customers.
Suppose you have a wine brand. You offer fine vintages and storage tips on your company website. You also have an article about buying Bordeaux wines. A prospect searching for a keyword such as “the best red wines of France” will quickly discover your writing and brand with proper SEO optimisation.
That’s why SEO matters.
Three Reasons to Optimise Your Brand’s Website
There are many reasons to optimise SEO, from increasing conversions to boosting your site’s reach for promotional purposes. First, though, you need to understand that SEO and conversions go hand-in-hand. Once you do so, you can create more productive and leaner web pages.
Here are the top three reasons you need to optimise your website immediately and why updating it over time is equally important.
1. Grow Organic Traffic
Businesses spend approximately 1% percent of their total revenue on advertising costs. If your business makes $2 million per year, you may have to pay $20,000 for advertising.
Initially, this seems like a small investment, but it adds up. There are industries where they spend way more on ads than just 1% percent of their revenue.
An excellent way to counter this is through organic traffic via SEO. However, organic traffic isn’t a free form of advertising. You need to pay to create and promote your content.
Yet, this process is not as expensive as pay-per-click. On top of that, the organic search seems more successful than paid search. Organic search closes at 15%, while paid search closes at only 2%.
Therefore, invest in growing organic traffic. It might take more time. However, the results also last longer, resulting in higher conversion rates.
2. Offer Valuable Content for Your Target Audience
To satisfy Google’s algorithm and rank high in SERPs, all you have to do is provide the best content for your target audience and create a positive user experience.
Hence, you should prioritize content that offers value to visitors and not just advertorials.
Think about it like this: Google analyses billions of websites while you cater to your target audience’s needs as an individual. Google employs more than 200 ranking factors when determining which content pieces should appear on the first page of SERPs.
The robust algorithm pays attention to what signs a particular web page gives to searchers as they seek relevant information.
If you optimise for SEO, you must choose keywords related to search intent. Write content people would love to read while, at the same time, ensuring you provide relevant meta information to help Google understand your copy better.
Like Google, aim to give your audience what they want. When you focus on conversions, guiding visitors towards a goal, such as purchasing your products or services or joining your newsletters, is where you should focus your energy.
Besides, optimising SEO and conversions creates a better and more solid relationship between your website and search engines.
3. Capitalize on Your Existing Traffic
When visitors finally arrive at your site, you want to have a lasting impression and make them want to return and convert.
It is paramount to figure out how people navigate and use your site, if they scroll down a page, or if they click on your CTAs (calls-to-action). Learning, therefore, how to optimise your web page for conversions calls for an in-depth understanding of the user experience.
For example, if a prospective customer signs up for your newsletter, you can contact them with other offers and incentives. Additionally, you can encourage prospects to follow you on your social, read your posts, and visit your product pages.
So, capitalizing on your existing traffic can improve conversion rates. You know what your target audience wants and how to present it appealingly and engagingly.
SEO Optimise Your Website in Five Simple Steps
The following simple-to-follow-and-implement steps can guarantee SEO success. Once you’re all set for SEO, you can focus on conversions as you continue to release new and update existing content.
Here we go!
1. Analyze Your Website’s Data
A single piece of data doesn’t tell much. Lots of data, though, show patterns. For example, if only a few people visit your website and fail to convert or click on your CTAs, you’re probably OK. But, if many prospects ignore your CTAs, you may have to make adjustments to increase the likelihood of conversions.
The Google Search Console and user behavior reports can help you get a clear picture of what’s going on on your website. For example, user behavior reports show how prospects behave after they’ve landed on your website.
The Google Search Console tracks metrics, such as the number of unique sessions, time spent on a specific page, bounce rate, etc.
Once you’ve gathered your data, analyze it. So, how are people discovering your site? What search engines are they using? Where are they from? Which of your pages gather the most traffic and conversions? Replicate a page’s success across your site to skyrocket your website’s success.
2. Conduct a Keyword Research
Unlike years ago, when you could pick any keyword and rank for it, SEO requires keywords relevant to your industry and niche. If you use random keywords, Google will penalize you, decreasing your ranking.
Consider why prospects search for a specific keyword and what they hope to see on a web page about it. To find keywords, you can use SEO tools, such as Surfer SEO, Marketmuse, or Ubersuggest, among others. It would be best to use them to find long-tail keywords in line with prospect customers’ search intent.
Remember to include keywords in your meta descriptions and images’ alternative texts.
3. Write Long-Form and Valuable Content
Writing long and in-depth articles that provide as much information on a topic is vital for SEO. According to many SEO experts, the ideal length for a blog post is around 1,500 words.
Yet, before deciding on the best length for your articles, Google your primary keyword. Then, check out the top 20 results in the SERPs. If they’re longer than 1,500 words, adjust your content’s length.
Length is significant, but not everything, though. It does send a positive sign to Google that you know what you’re writing about and offer reliable information to customers. And, if people spend a long time on your article and read to the end, you’ll rank even higher. So, use short sentences and write engagingly.
If this feels too much for you or you, don’t have time to invest in writing high-quality long-form content .
4. Optimize for On-Page and Off-Page SEO
On-page SEO helps you optimise a website when working on specific landing pages. For example, headlines, subheadlines, meta descriptions, and URL slugs are parts of on-page SEO.
So, use your primary keyword in the headline or as close to the start of the article as possible. Then, use it in the slug and at least one subheading. Two to three uses are enough for a primary keyword for the main text. However, please don’t overdo it, as you will be marked for keyword stuffing, which harms SEO.
Off-page SEO, also known as off-site SEO, concerns how you optimise your site through external means, like guest blogging, influencer marketing, backlinks, and social media activity.
Links make a massive difference in SEO, and if done correctly, they can rapidly increase your site’s reach. However, what you don’t want is backlinks from low-authority sites. They don’t help and might damage your SEO efforts. Instead, focus on asking high-authority websites for backlinks.
5. Mobile-Friendliness
Considering that more people access the Web and websites from their mobile devices, it’s no wonder Google finds mobile-friendliness an essential ranking factor. Also, Google launched a mobile-first index, meaning you rank higher if you focus more on mobile-friendliness.
The best way to adapt your website for mobile audiences is to have a responsive site design. There are hundreds of free or premium WordPress themes with a built-in responsive design, so you don’t need to worry about coding or paying extra to a web developer.
Conclusion
SEO is complex, yet having a good knowledge of the basics can give you a head start.
Follow the above SEO tactics to optimise your site’s reach, improve user experience, and increase conversion rates.
If you need help with SEO optimisation or a dedicated team of writers to produce SEO-optimised content for your website, feel free to reach for a high-end content writing solution.