Optimize SEO: the guide to better position your site – Fasterize
Optimize your SEO: 5 steps to better rank
Understanding the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial for any website owner. SEO, or natural referencing, is a set of techniques aimed at improving the position of a website on search engine results pages .
According to a study conducted by Backlinko and Semrush , we know that the first three Google search results get 54.4% of all clicks. The goal of an SEO strategy is therefore to increase the visibility of a site in the organic search results of search engines such as Google. SEO encompasses various expertise: technical, content creation and acquisition of external links. Good SEO is essential to ensure a solid online presence. It attracts quality traffic, increases brand awareness and can increase the site’s revenue. However, setting up an SEO strategy for a business is a complex process that requires patience, expertise and a thorough understanding of search engine algorithms, how they work and what they expect. Let’s find out what are the major key steps to optimize your SEO and gain visibility on the Internet.
Know the market
Before diving head first into SEO optimization for your site, it is essential to know your market well . This includes understanding:
- its specificities,
- its highlights,
- its actors,
- its codes
- and its competitive dynamics.
Each market has a unique set of relevant keywords, semantic nuances, and search trends, which can significantly influence your SEO strategy. In addition, a precise knowledge of the market allows you to discover untapped opportunities to stand out, understand your users’ expectations, and effectively interact with your target audience . This is therefore the first step in building a rigorous and effective SEO strategy .
Make a good keyword strategy
A good keyword strategy is essential to optimize the SEO of websites. Indeed, it is the very backbone of your strategy which, correctly implemented, will improve your visibility on search engines. A keyword strategy, or semantic audit , is an exercise that allows you to analyze not only your own website, but also those of your competitors. This allows you to:
- to identify required optimizations (optimizations of existing content)
- and to identify a possible extension of semantic scope (creation of new pages).
Additionally, a well-crafted keyword strategy helps design and optimize your site’s tree structure and internal linking, two crucial aspects of SEO.
Ensure the technical quality of your site
The technical aspect of a website plays a crucial role in its SEO effectiveness. A quality source code improves the crawling and indexing of the site by search engines. It is therefore essential:
- to technically audit the site,
The technical audit will allow you to quickly identify and resolve priority errors such as pages responding in 404 and broken links for example. But that’s not all, this technical audit also aims to become aware of any technical limitations that could lower the crawl quality of your site. In particular, we recommend that you check the cache rendering of your pages as well as their rendering without Javascript. These checks will allow you to better understand how Google will explore your pages, when the graphic part is absent, for example.
- to facilitate access and indexing for robots
Other technical elements must also be optimized to facilitate access and crawling of the site by search engine indexing robots, such as the sitemap.xml file and the robots.txt file. The latter is particularly useful since it allows you to indicate blocking and/or authorization directives allowing you to optimize Google’s crawl budget. Be careful, however, not to block certain directories essential to the proper functioning of your CMS. There are many tools that allow you to test your directives on the Web. Better still, Google has integrated a direct verification of your robots.txt file into Google Search Console. The report lists any errors detected.
- and make it accessible and safe for users.
It is also important to ensure that the site is mobile-friendly and has an HTTPS domain to ensure a better user experience and optimal security . On this subject, it is important to ensure that no residual HTTP URLs are present on your site. Make sure that automatic redirection rules are set up.
Since May 2021, Google has reinforced the importance of Web Performance with the launch of ” Core Web Vitals “. These three crucial indicators (Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift) are now essential for user experience and SEO. They measure the loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability of your web page respectively. According to Google research, 53% of mobile Internet users leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. A first step would be to carry out a diagnosis of your current web performance using a free Webperf tool . You will be able to identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions on the path to follow for optimal optimization of your SEO.
Produce quality content
Content quality is the cardinal element of a successful SEO strategy. Optimized content is, above all, unique content that meets the search intent of the target query. It involves:
- the choice of medium (blog article, category page content, editorial guide, etc.)
- effective use of title and meta description tags, ensuring good visibility on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages),
- creating a short and understandable URL,
- the use of Hn (headings) markup within the text to contribute to the structure of the content,
- using HTML layout markup to improve readability,
- the use of structured data if necessary,
- the use of the semantic field associated with the target query when writing,
- but also the integration of compressed images with an alt attribute
- and the integration and optimization of internal links (internal meshing).
Throughout the life of the site, it is necessary to ensure up-to-date content and prevent the risks of internal cannibalization by ensuring that any duplicate content is eliminated.
Get external links
An effective netlinking strategy can significantly improve your SEO. Netlinking consists of obtaining external links pointing to your site, which are considered by search engines as a sign of trust. There are different techniques for developing and optimizing a netlinking strategy, including:
- linkbaiting,
- press relations
- and buying links.
These external links, called backlinks , strengthen the reputation and authority of your site, thus improving your positioning in search results. Working on your netlinking strategy is therefore a crucial pillar of an optimized SEO strategy.
It is often difficult for SEO professionals to deploy their SEO recommendations. An SEO recommendation deployment tool like Edge SEO then becomes a particularly useful solution. This tool makes the link between the SEO audit and the crucial implementation step. It allows you to fill in your semantic, technical and even editorial recommendations, but also to deploy them directly on your site without having to involve your development teams or your web marketing teams.
EdgeSEO allows you to implement SEO optimizations on the fly, without touching your site’s code. With this tool, you can test and deploy your recommendations in real-time, and thus measure the impact of changes on your SEO. In addition, EdgeSEO automates the process, which not only reduces the effort required, but also the risk of errors. From optimizing the Title tag to adding rules in the robots.txt, an SEO recommendation deployment tool gives you a streamlined and efficient approach to optimizing your SEO.