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SEO — or search engine optimization — is a term you probably hear a lot, but what exactly does it mean for your business? Why should you care? Well, on the most basic level, SEO determines how high your business ranks organically on a search engine.

 

Let’s say you’re looking for the best florist in your city, so you Google “florists in Nashville.” Of course, many florists will pop up, but the ones that have the best SEO ranking will appear on the first page of the search results. And the fact is, those will probably be the ones you’ll choose from because most of us can’t be bothered to click “next” more than a couple times.

 

Improving SEO can help your business stand out from the competition and attract new customers.

 

So how do you go about improving your site’s SEO? Here are five simple ways:

Use SEO-friendly URLs.  

 

Your URL structure should be simple, short, and include the specific keywords you want the URL to rank for above all else. A URL that has a ton of symbols or numbers is unappealing to readers, and you want your page to show up on appropriate search results. The same thing rings true for a super-long URL.

Look at the difference between these two links:

http://floristexample.com/delivery-services

http://floristexample.com/index.php?39344906+95=67

One is succinct and will rank appropriately, the other is a bunch of jumbled symbols that is simply a placeholder.

In addition, Google recommends using hyphens rather than underscores in URLs.

To avoid problems with URLs, Google also says you should consider shortening them by trimming unnecessary parameters, checking your site for broken relative links, using cookies instead of session IDs, and using a robots.txt file to block Googlebot’s access to problem URLs.

Setting up your Google Webmaster account is a good place to start!

Also, if your site has an infinite calendar, Google recommends adding a nofollow attribute to links.

Drop in keywords early. 

 

SEO keywords are in your website’s content and help people find your site when they’re using a web search through Google, Bing and other search engines. Make sure to pack your website full of meaningful keywords, and aim to drop them in early.

But don’t just add keywords that have no relevance to your site in the hopes that it will up your ranking. Instead, identify what people are searching for in your line of business. Identify which keywords your potential customers will be interested in by asking yourself what problems they have and what language they will use to describe what they do.

In addition, ask yourself whom they are buying things from. After you’ve figured this out, you can input the information into keyword tools from sites such as Google and WordStream.

 

Provide links in your website. 

 

Provide relevant external links on your website to improve your search engine ranking. According to a survey from Moz, top SEOs believe external links are the most important factor in ranking power. External links are vital because search engines count them as third-party votes.

 

Moz suggests examining several criteria when determining which external links to use on your site. These include the trustworthiness of the link, the popularity of the linking page and how relevant the external link is to your site.

 

Add social sharing buttons. 

 

Rather than just including social media icons on your site, also include an option to share the page to enhance your SEO ranking. Make sure you include sharing buttons on all the content you create and each page of your website.

 

Make sure it’s mobile-friendly. 

 

Adapting your website to tablets and phones is very important, especially with Google’s announcement that it will now be ranking mobile-friendly websites above others. If your competitor’s site is more mobile-friendly, your business may move down in search results.

 

Test your website with Google’s mobile-friendly tool and read up on common mistakes Google sees on mobile websites such as unplayable content, slow pages and faulty redirects.