Supercharge Your Website’s Traffic with Search Engine Optimization

Belle Fortson • October 12, 2023

In today’s digital world, having a robust online presence is essential for businesses and individuals alike. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital in ensuring your website ranks high in search engine results— ideally, the first page, increasing your visibility and driving organic traffic.

To do this, common search engines, like Google, tend to use bots to explore all web pages, downloading and storing useful information into an index. This information is then used in an algorithm to determine which pages should show up at the top of a search page. 

While we cannot change the algorithm, creating a website that meets certain criteria is possible, increasing its chance of having a higher SEO. Here are some useful tips for optimizing your website.

1) Understand your audience

Understanding the needs of your audience or your customers is the first step toward improving your website. When looking to build a website or accomplish a goal, market research is the first step to success. This helps you understand your customers and their needs, as well as your competitors. A good tip is to consider why a customer may be seeking out your services and use that information to create keywords across your website to draw their attention.

2) Use keywords

By using keywords, you allow your website to be easily recognizable, which will contribute to the algorithm that determines your SEO. It is best to use popular words that relate to your services, or that people are likely to use in their search. Do research on which keywords will best represent your brand and showcase your services. AI tools can also assist in developing keywords.

3) Update Content

Keeping your website up to date, and refreshing it with new content regularly, will cause the search engine to visit your site more frequently to collect new data. In most cases, this will aid in optimizing your website, as the algorithm will pick up these changes and note the frequency of new visits. New content may include photos, recent testimonials, news related to your business, or anything that may be relevant to your services.

4) Website Referrals

When a search engine ranks web pages, they often factor in the number of times your site is referred to or linked across the internet. Websites with a high number of mentions are often seen as more reliable, essentially guaranteeing a vote of confidence from the search engine. By having your website linked to other reputable sites or even on social media, you will help to boost your own page’s ranking.

5) Use Meta Tags

Meta Tags are a part of the HTML code within your website. Complicated, I know. When you create a new HTML code, inserting keywords into the Meta tag will often help the search engines to better identify your website, and allow it to appear higher in search result rankings.

For example, on the search results for NP Strategy, our website appears like this:

Meanwhile, the Meta tag for this would appear in this format:

<meta name=”description” content=”NP Strategy | A Public Relations Firm with offices in Birmingham and Mobile, AL, Charlotte and Raleigh, NC and Charleston and Columbia, SC.”/>

By inputting this information, it becomes easier for users to find the website using the keywords within this tag.

If it’s time to boost your website ranking, SEO is the first step to driving traffic.