11 tips to improve your SEO in 2023

11 tips to improve your SEO in 2023 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is important when you’d like to improve your website. Through the use of SEO you can optimize your website by implementing certain technical elements, by writing stronger content and by building some authority across your site.  

All those actions will help you to then reach a better ranking in search engines such as Google or Bing.  

Would you like to find out how you can optimize your website through SEO? Then check out our full list of tips & tricks down below! 

1. Use the correct keywords 

Before you get your content creation on, make sure you’ve done your research. What’s your topic? How do you want people to find you?  

Once you’ve answered these questions, get specific with your messaging. Because if you’re too vague, readers won’t stick around for long.  

For instance, if you’re a hairdresser looking to rank higher on Google, don’t waste your efforts trying to rank for broad terms like “hair” or “hairdresser”. Instead, target specific long-tail keywords like “hairstyle wedding women” or “cool hairstyle man”.  

By doing so, you’ll attract a more targeted audience who is more likely to convert into customers. So, do some keyword research and aim to get specific with your messaging. 

If you’d like to get started with your own keywords and which are relevant to your website, then try the next couple of tools: 

• Google Keyword Planner: You’ll get access to this tool if you have a Google Ads account. All you have to do is enter a keyword and you’ll immediately get a bunch of synonyms or related words with the search volume for each word attached. That’s useful to check which keywords are entered most often to find something specific.  

• Uber Suggest: This tool has been created by marketing guru Neil Patel, which you may use for free to get your list of keywords! 

We’ve mentioned before in a previous blog post what LSI-keywords are: they’re keywords that are related to your main keywords, i.e. the words you would like to rank for. An example at the time was this: say you’re writing an article about cars, then your main keyword is “car” and your LSI-keywords are terms like “Audi”, “BMW” or “vehicle”. Even if you wouldn’t mention the word “car” specifically in your text, then Google will still know that the article is about cars, thanks to your use of the LSI-keywords. 

2. Create relevant content and keep it up-to-date 

If you want to achieve a top-notch SEO score, quality content is key! People scour the web for answers to their burning questions, and if your website delivers, they’ll stick around to read more. This is crucial because when visitors spend more time on your website, it sends a signal to Google that your content is relevant and trustworthy. And you know what that means? Your domain authority goes up and so does your ranking in search results. So, don’t skip out on creating valuable content, because it pays off in the long run! 

It’s not just about having good content, but also about keeping it fresh and updated. Take a look at your old blog posts or articles from the past and ask yourself if the information is still relevant today. If not, make sure to update and adjust accordingly. This not only keeps your content valuable for your readers, but it also signals to search engines like Google that your website is active and engaging. So, make it a habit to review and update your content on a regular basis to maintain your website’s relevance and authority. 

By the way, do you have some older blog posts that didn’t perform that well? You don’t have to delete them necessarily. Just make some small adjustments, like improving the content and adding links, because those can already have a large impact on your performance! 

3. Metadata & ALTs 

Meta-Title

This is a title that you’ll have to create for each page. It’s also the title that people see in the search results when they are looking for something, so make sure your  title isn’t longer than 70 characters. Longer titles will be shortened, which is not a good look. You’ll also see this meta-title at the top of your browser screen. 

Meta-Description

Underneath the titel of your blog post or page, Google also shows a description, which is called the “meta-description. Make sure you add this for each page: simply write a short summary (between 120 and 155 characters) about the page’s content, so you can convince people to click on your link. If you don’t add this information yourself, then Google will automatically show the first couple of sentences from your page, which rarely works out well. 

ALT-tag

We all know how important images are on our websites, but did you know that they can affect your SEO ranking? That’s where adding ALT-tags comes in handy. ALT-tags provide Google with information about what’s depicted in the image. This can be especially useful for product images, like cameras, for instance. By adding an alt-tag with the specific make and model of your camera, Google will be able to display it in the search results, potentially driving more traffic to your website. So don’t forget to add those ALT-tags! 

4. Make your website outrun Usain Bolt 

Having a fast-loading website is crucial for achieving a good ranking in search results. Slow loading times not only result in missed opportunities to turn visitors into customers, but they also lead to search engines like Google considering your content as irrelevant to visitors. As a result, your authority may be downgraded, and you may be penalized.  

But don’t worry, there are several ways to improve your website’s speed, and for WordPress users, plugins such as W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache can be incredibly helpful. So, if you want to stay ahead of the competition and ensure that your website is both user and search engine friendly, it’s time to prioritize its loading speed! 

Another thing that can inadvertently slow down your website is your use of large images on your website. Larger and/or heavier files will take longer to load, so make sure that you make the necessary adjustments. For example, try to use JPG or JPEG instead of PNG. Also, compress your images by using tools like Photoshop or use a free tool like Online JPEG compressor. Again: WordPress users have a ton of plugins at their disposal that can help out! 

5. Outgoing links 

If you’d like to make your content even more compelling, then try linking to other websites that are considered to be authorities on the subject of your choice. In doing so, Google will believe your website can be trusted. Just make sure that you don’t put in too many links, because then it may be viewed as SPAM. Are you writing about SEO? Then link to websites like WiSEO or Moz. 

6. Broken links 

It’s frustrating for both website visitors and website owners when a search result leads to a 404-error page, indicating that the page is not found. Visitors tend to leave your website as quickly as they came, resulting in Google deeming your website irrelevant, which can negatively impact your search engine ranking.  

If this is a recurring issue for your website, your ranking in search engines will suffer even more.  

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to fix this issue. You can monitor broken links using the Google Search Console and receive notifications when something isn’t working correctly. Alternatively, you can type “Site:example.com” into Google to get a full overview of broken links. By proactively addressing this issue, you can improve the user experience and ensure that your website is seen as relevant by search engines. Good luck! 

7. Legibility

It’s essential that your content is easy to read if you want to engage and retain visitors on your website. If your content is difficult to read, visitors will quickly lose interest and may even leave your site, resulting in a missed opportunity to engage your customer. 

What’s more, it’s even speculated that search engines read content in the same way as humans do, so if your website isn’t easy to read, your ranking will suffer. If you’ve addressed all other issues but still notice visitors leaving your website quickly, consider how easy your article is to read. By improving the readability of your content, you can keep visitors engaged and improve your search engine ranking. 

8. Mobile optimization

It’s no secret that more and more people are using their smartphones to browse the internet, shop online, and access information on-the-go. That’s why it’s absolutely critical to optimize your website for mobile devices. Failing to do so means missing out on a huge pool of potential customers! Plus, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, search engines will penalize you in the rankings.  

So, ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices, with all content easy to read on a small screen as it is on a desktop. Don’t let your website get left behind in the mobile revolution! 

9. Sharing on social media 

The number of shares on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, can have a massive impact on your SEO ranking.  

As you can see at the bottom of this page, you have the possibility to easily and immediately share this blog post on your favourite social media platform thanks to our clickable share buttons. Thanks to those buttons, it’s much more user-friendly to share a piece of content, which results in more people making use of the feature to re-post content. 

10. Enjoy your new status of pro-blogger! 

As we mentioned in our article on boosting website traffic, starting a blog can be a game-changer for your online presence. Of course, it does require some time and effort to maintain, but it’s definitely worth it. By consistently publishing fresh and engaging content, you can attract more visitors to your website.  

As your blog gains traction in search engine results, you’ll notice a significant uptick in traffic. This, in turn, can increase your website’s authority and further improve your search engine ranking. So, if you have the resources, starting a blog is definitely a worthwhile investment. 

11. Website, where you at? 

In order to help out Google read and analyze your website correctly, we advise you to add a sitemap to your website, which should also be linked to the Google Search Console. In doing so, Google will know exactly which pages your website consists of and what each page is about. In addition, you can use the Search Console to check whether Google is “crawling” your website correctly, i.e. reading your website and then displaying it correctly in the search results. 

Now that you’ve taken care of optimizing your website and fixing broken links, we highly recommend checking your robots.txt file. This file tells Google which pages should and should not be indexed. We’ve seen many cases where a website is launched with a command in the robots.txt that excludes the entire site from being indexed, resulting in poor search engine visibility. Don’t let that happen to you! Make sure your robots.txt is set up correctly and that it’s not blocking any important pages that you want to appear in search results.