SEO is the leitmotif of every website owner; what are the different levers of natural referencing?
The Internet has become essential for legal entities and individuals seeking visibility. The creation of a site is the first step to be present on the web, but it is not enough to take advantage of the planetary network. And for good reason, the sites are abundant. 1.88 billion Websites are registered worldwide. The sites that manage to attract a lot of Internet users are those that climb to the first pages of search results. To do this, the natural referencing or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of the sites is essential. To effectively reference your site, AntheDesign gives you the 11 SEO levers to activate.
First SEO lever: the audit
Web referencing is a technical job that requires the use of a number of tools and the adoption of good practices. Some errors can cause a site to lose places in search engine rankings. In order to know the points on which to act to optimize the SEO of your site, carry out its audit. This task is accomplished by SEO experts.
The SEO audit focuses on the architecture and content of the site. It identifies mistakes or practices that hinder SEO effectiveness. The audit can be internal to detect the strengths and weaknesses of the site and/or external to get an idea of the SEO strategies used by competitors. At the end of the audit, the seo for financial advisors expert provides you with a report. This will be your roadmap for improving your site.
Site security, necessary for better SEO
As Internet use spreads, hacking increases. Yes, it is proportional!
Cyber-hackers (the Jack Sparrows of the web) are constantly looking for loopholes in which they rush. Computer attacks are a reality that you must face. One of the SEO levers is precisely the security of the site.
Internet users are rightly fleeing sites that do not guarantee the security of their data. If your site does not yet use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), secure it as soon as possible. This protocol is represented by a closed padlock. It indicates that your web browsing is secure, unlike HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).
The protocol used by the sites is taken into account by the search engines, in this case Google, when indexing (or ranking). HTTPS sites are favored over HTTP sites because Google tries to ensure that its users’ data is protected. In short, an HTTPS site is more likely to have a good positioning in search results than an HTTP site.
The publication of quality and optimized content
Content is the heart of any SEO strategy. This is what the user is looking for on a web page. Publishing relevant content with added value is fundamental to getting a site into the top search results. In order to create quality content, consider the needs of your target audience. The topics covered must have a link with the Internet users you are targeting. If you have just launched your site and are looking for themes to animate your blog or your e-commerce site, do not hesitate to take inspiration from competing sites. Quality SEO content isn’t just well-written content. For referencing, compliance with the rules in this area is inevitable. This is why the advice of an agency
specializing in the field such as AntheDesign can be fundamental.
Content marketing (content marketing) is based on keywords. Keyword stuffing, however, is sanctioned by Google (the most widely used search engine in the world). Ditto for content duplication, which consists of publishing the same content on different sites. Even if you manage several sites dealing with the same theme, be sure to create unique articles for each one.
Internal linking, a useful practice in SEO
Internal linking is an SEO practice that offers interesting results. The operation consists of weaving links between several pages of a site. The internal linking aims to keep Internet users on the site for a long time. For example, in an article dealing with business creation, links can be inserted to redirect the reader to pages dealing with similar topics such as:
- The legal status of companies;
- The means of financing a business;
- Business recovery, etc.
For an e-commerce site, the insertion of links in a product sheet is useful to make the user discover other products. The internal link encourages the Internet user to go to other pages, which leads him to explore the site. This technique improves the visibility of certain pages and generally brings traffic to the site. It is well perceived by Google’s SEO algorithm because it makes the site consistent.
Google side
The internal mesh favors the crawl of Google robots.
Example:
You have three liters of fuel (no more) to complete a trip from A to B representing those three liters. What makes you get to B? Direction signs. Well, the more relevant the indications on these panels, the better your trip goes. You make your journey without incident and above all you arrive at B with your allotted quantity of fuel. Keep in mind that for Google robots the pattern is the same. They have a crawl budget to scan the pages of your site. With internal meshing, you tell bots which direction to go so they don’t waste time; their passages are optimized and your site is inspected in length, width and across.
Another SEO lever: net linking, capital for SEO
Like internal linking, net linking relies on links. In this case, the links are integrated into articles on external pages and direct Internet users to the targeted site. Net linking (link building) is applied to increase the number of backlinks directed to a site. This is a technique that Google pays a lot of attention to.
The web giant’s PageRank tool scans sites to assess the amount of backlinks they have as well as the sites from which they come. An authority score is established by the algorithm. Google values sites that have backlinks from authority sites. Is judged by authority, a site renowned for its articles which provides relevant and verified information to Internet users. To succeed in net linking, go to authority sites with the same theme as yours. Please also diversify the sources of your backlinks.
Page load speed
When a page is slow to load, that’s reason enough for someone to leave your site. To improve SEO, you need to optimize the page loading speed. Google’s crawlers consider loading time as a criterion for ranking sites in search results. The speed at which a web page loads impacts the user experience. It’s a bit like at the petrol station: who waits patiently behind a vehicle when a space has just become available at pump n°1? Few or even no one!
We advise you to use a tool like Page Speed Insights to evaluate the loading time on your site. If this exceeds 3 seconds, the loading is then considered too slow and will have to be remedied. A few tricks such as reducing the size of images and compressing HTML files are helpful in speeding up page loading. In case the slowness persists despite these actions, call AntheDesign! We will make you benefit from our expertise.
Mobile browsing, to improve the SEO of the site
It was shown, last year, that 56% of Internet traffic in the world is provided by smartphones and tablets, against 44% for computers. Mobile browsing is widely used and is a lever on which to act to improve the SEO of sites. Restructuring your site to make it easily usable via mobile devices is a must if it hasn’t already been done.
Google takes into account the needs of its users and gives a good positioning to sites optimized for mobiles. To follow this trend and meet Google’s requirements, you have two options:
- Mobile friendly , which consists of making the content originally available on a computer accessible on mobile;
- Mobile -first, which consists of creating a site specifically for mobile browsing.
Make your choice taking into account the browsing habits of your target:
- If your target audience is mostly young and made up of individuals, the ideal would be to go mobile-first.
- On the other hand, if you are targeting professionals, mobile-friendly should be enough to promote mobile browsing.
Image optimization
Images occupy an important place in the referencing of a site. The Google Images tool has its little success for searches based on visuals. Adding images to written content has become a rule to observe on the sidelines of an SEO operation. To get the most out of the images, make sure they are of high quality.
If you can, take your own photos that will perfectly illustrate your texts and will have the merit of being unique. Otherwise, use royalty-free image banks available on the internet such as:
- photomelia,
- Pickaway,
- Pixambo,
- Free Image…
Image referencing is required. To do this, you will need to give them titles and fill in the Alt tag.
For example, to optimize the image of a dog in a garden, you can create an evocative title like “dog-garden”.
As for the Alt tag, it is the alternative text that appears when you place the cursor over an image in web content. This description tells Google what the image represents. For the example above, the Alt tag could be “dog in garden” or “dog present in garden”. In order to optimize your images, prefer JPG, PNG formats that search engines read easily.
User experience: an important SEO lever
Websites are designed for Internet users and must be useful to them. The business principle that the customer is king applies scrupulously at Google. The search engine only gives interest to sites that are of interest to users. So be sure to
constantly improve your site to enrich the user experience (UX for User Experience) of your target.
We advise you to pay attention to the interface of your site which must be easily accessible and fluid. If necessary, use a web design professional (like AntheDesign) to give your platform a graphic identity. We can also, for example, accompany you for the redesign of your site.
Also enrich the user experience of Internet users by varying the formats of your content. You have the choice between:
- blog posts,
- definition pages such as lexicons,
- FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions),
- the guides,
- service pages,
- Or the product sheets,
- SEO experts.
After a site redesign to bring it up to date, pages sometimes become inaccessible. In this case, you must necessarily use the 301 redirect in order to avoid that users are confronted with the 401 error (page without resource). The 301 redirect takes the user to the new page containing the content they are looking for. The user does not even realize that there has been a change of URL.
Content refresh
All information is subject to change over time. Since the content of your site is made of information, it must adapt to the evolution of the latter. Updating content is an SEO lever to use in order to make your site a reference in its field. In reality, the indexing carried out by Google’s algorithms continues after a page is published. Regularly updated pages are valued by the search engine.
Google believes that updated content brings added value to Internet users and improves their user experience. By updating your articles, you prove to your Internet users that you want to provide them with accurate and up-to-date information. This practice has the advantage of not causing
new expenditure. In the event of a modification of a law that you mentioned in an article, for example, modify the article according to the new information.
Last SEO lever: performance analysis
SEO requires constant monitoring which is done through the analysis of the results of the strategy adopted. By evaluating performance, you determine which SEO levers you are not using yet. SEO analysis is one of the services offered by SEO agencies like AntheDesign (And presto! It’s rested here!). This service is often requested by clients as part of an SEO campaign. You can inquire with our team to find out how to properly conduct your SEO campaign.
The performance of an SEO strategy is analyzed through indicators such as:
- the number of clicks,
- the number of open pages,
- the time spent on the site by visitors on average,
- Connection devices, etc.
To collect performance data, Google offers Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
These tools are easy to handle, even by web SEO laymen. However, the use of a professional like our agency is relevant to explain the results and find solutions to strengthen your SEO strategy.
