SEO is the driving force behind conversions. Using techniques to optimize your website’s SEO leads to more traffic and conversions. While SEO optimization takes time and expertise, it’s much more cost-effective when compared to launching internet marketing campaigns.
Simple tricks like adding alternative text and using a responsive website design can really help your website’s ranking in search engines. Here’s a look at the best ways to audit for optimized SEO and conversions.
Responsive Design
If you want to maximize conversions, your website should be compatible on all devices. According to statistics, as of the third quarter of 2018, 52.4% of web traffic around the world originated from a mobile device.
A few companies are still in the dark ages and actually drive away sales by not having mobile-friendly websites. You should analyze your website’s responsiveness on mobile, tablet, and laptop devices. There are a few tools, such as the Responsinator, where you can test your website’s responsiveness on multiple devices all in one place. Responsive website templates are the new norm, so you won’t have any trouble finding a responsive WordPress or Shopify theme.
Fast Load Times
There’s no doubt that a slow-loading website drives away traffic and gives off a bad impression. The factor that contributes the most to a website’s load times is its hosting provider. A website on a private server with more dedicated RAM and storage capacity will load much faster than a website hosted on a shared server. In addition to the website’s hosting, https requests can really bog a website down.
The more files that have to render on your page, the more https requests there will be. Since Google’s ranking algorithm factors in load times, your website’s SEO will take a hit if it’s slow. There are two resources, GTmetrix and Pingdom, that analyze your website’s speed and highlight areas that need improvement.
Build Backlinks
Backlinks are key to boosting your website’s SEO. A backlink is simple – it’s when one website links to another. In a nutshell, the most effective backlinks are the ones on high-authority websites that are related to your niche. T
he link is sort of like a “vouch” that builds trust for your website. In fact, backlinks are one of Google’s top three SEO factors that help calculate your ranking in search results. When it comes time to develop backlinks, don’t establish garbage backlinks on low-quality websites.
These types of websites actually do more harm to your SEO than they do good. Now, you might be wondering how you quantify the number of backlinks linking back to your website. You can use a number of free and paid backlink checker and analysis tools to see reports of how many links exist.
Include Alternative Text on Every Image
Adding alternative text to every image is a simple technique that many people overlook. Why is this important? Not only does alternative text make your website friendlier for the visually impaired, but it also helps crawlers better index your pages.
In addition, website pages are more likely to show up on image searches. A large number of search engine users use image search to reach websites as opposed to traditional web searches. Like the other tools mentioned, there are websites such as SEO SiteCheckup that audit the alt text on each image on your website.
While there are tons of tools for beginners to optimize and audit their website’s SEO, experts in WordPress can help you deal with the finer points of website maintenance. WordPress experts are well versed in advanced SEO plugins and features that are a must-have on any website. Investing in the help of an expert is just as important (if not more so) as carrying out an elaborate marketing campaign. Since SEO involves many sophisticated techniques, don’t rely on free tools to handle all your SEO.