Do you find it difficult to identify areas where you can improve your site? Does it feel like you have done all that is possible when it comes to search engine optimization? Here are five points that almost everyone needs to work on, regardless of how far you have come.
Speed Up Your Site
We work a lot with this, and it might make us think that it’s a bit more important than it really is, but the time it takes to load a page is extremely important for Google. Here, there is almost always more to do for those who feel that everything else is finished.
Brath.se loads somewhere around 200 ms, if you disregard an annoying Facebook-pixel needed for our marketing there. It is of course possible to speed that up; for example, we still have several different CCS files, and the fact that we chose to have https also slowed things down slightly.
Create New Landing Pages
There is almost always more traffic to bring in for those who can deliver content to an already strong site. Based on a thorough keyword analysis, find keywords on which you don’t rank, but that still drive a certain amount of traffic, and start producing good landing pages.
We adopt this method on almost all projects where we are out of other ideas, when you already rank so well that other measures don’t add very much. We often use our partner to help out with content.
Improve Your Landing Pages
Pages on the site with a lot of traffic or links (external) can be a gold mine for those who have the energy to go through them. Especially if you have an old site, there may be good reason to go through the Analytics and the Search Console to find pages that are strong, but that have not received the attention they deserve.
I personally do this regularly on this site. Above all, I think it works well for finding pages with a lot of traffic and high bounce rates in Analytics. I already know that the pages have potential, but they don’t live up to the visitor’s expectations. Improving those pages will deliver results every time.
Outreach
There is no limit on how far you can reach with the outreach. Unfortunately, it is rarely cost-effective, although that depends on the niche. Build relationships with bloggers and webmasters, and make sure you’re mentioned and linked to. If you have products to send, do so, otherwise you need to boost these efforts with content marketing.
Optimize Images – The Next Level
Have you paid attention to Google’s image search? If you search for a stock photo from your site or a product image you received from the supplier, can you find more of them? Do you seriously think that Google will perceive you as unique if they can find other identical pictures?
Naturally, the search engine understands that providing unique photos are not always possible, but all of Google’s other requirement have uniqueness at their core. There is every reason in the world to make sure your images are unique if you have already taken care of all other optimization. This can be a considerable undertaking – we have just started to try to solve this problem on this site, because we use stock photos a lot.
Of course, the images should have the right size, the correct name, be compressed and have the right alt tag as well.
Was That Too Much Information?
Were these five points too big for you to feel that you can successfully tackle them? If you have not come this far yet in your optimization, there might be easier things to get started with. Have a read through our 31 SEO tips in 31 days, a guide for those who want a little more speed and a little less boredom.