When you search for an item, a place or a person, chances are that you place the name of that particular search in the search field of a search engine and click “search.” If you are looking for an idea or a concept you’ll enter keywords — words that describe your search.
Regardless of the type of search, website owners want to make sure that their website appears as far up on the list of sites as possible for their specific focus. The further up the search rankings the website appears, the larger the number of people who will see the site.
For website builders who use an easy “do-it-yourself” website builder, such as Weebly, there are strategies that are built into the Weebly platform that make it easier to boost your SEO ranking and become more visible to more people.
Organization
When you create your website you’ll want to maximize any and all SEO tools. You should prepare an outline of the necessary tasks before you even start creating your site. It’s true that you can always go back afterward and fill in the gaps. However, to cover all the bases, draw up a plan and follow it from the moment that you establish your new URL. This will help you complete all of the steps needed to create the most SEO-friendly site possible.
SEO experts suggest that you follow four basic points to optimize your site for SEO:
Register the Domain
When you choose the name for your website, think about how the name is going to be viewed by the public. You want to find a name that reflects the business and attracts curious newcomers as well as serious searchers. If you are selling dresses, call your site something that fits in with fashion, women’s clothing and other like-minded concepts. You can individualize it — for instance, something like “www.gwensclothing.com.” But keep in mind that, as you build your business’s name recognition, that name is going to stick with you. So choose wisely.
To register the domain you need to complete 2 steps:
1.Register your domain with a domain company (GoDaddy, NameSecure, DomainRightNow, etc). It costs approximately $20 per year and ensures that no one else can use your URL.
Think about your domain — is your site a .com (general), a .info, an .org, a .biz or a .gov. The domain provides a hint to the site visitor that tells them what type of site they are viewing. If you have a commercial site you’ll probably want a .com. For a government site, the domain is .gov while a site that is run by a non-profit will have an .org domain.
- Register your site with Weebly. Weebly hosts the site on its server and provides you with the tools that allow you to build the site. You can operate your site for free through Weebly but the URL will display a path that shows www.xxxxxxxxx/weebly.com. Once you pay Weebly to host your site the “weebly” in the URL will disappear.
Choose your Keywords
Your site’s keywords should be embedded in the site’s headers and text but you will want to embed them into the site’s code through the backend. This allows the search engines to “read” your site and display it when someone conducts a search that includes those keywords.
Weebly makes it easy to put your keywords into the site’s backend, as well as keywords for each individual webpage. To embed the site’s general keywords into the site’s code, go to the “Settings” tab on the top of your edit page and then click “SEO” on the left sidebar. Enter your keywords into the “Meta Keywords” box. Choose “long-tailed” keywords….phrases that are comprised of two or more keywords. For instance, for Gwen’s Clothing website, you might want to use keywords such as “elegant clothing,” “elegant dresses,”women’s elegant clothing,” etc.
To place your keywords on each page, click on the “Pages” tab on your website builder and go from one page to the next. On the left toolbar you’ll see a button that says “SEO.” Click that button and then add the individual keyword phrases (again, long-tailed keywords are best) for each webpage.
Add in your Codes
Google is the biggest search engine, out-performing other search engines by more than 2 to 1. So regardless of the other search engine tools, you’re going to want to make Google happy.
Once you’ve created your domain you need to register that domain with Google. There are many tutorials, both through Google and on YouTube, that will walk you through the process of registering your site. Google “reads” the sites that have registered with it better than it “reads” other sites and also gives you tools to track your site’s performance.
After you complete the registration procedure, access your “header” and “footer” codes. Google gives you these individual codes which you then enter into your SEO settings — both the general “settings” page and for each individual webpage. The header and footer should appear in the backend of every single webpage to make it more visible to Google.
Content
Content is king with Google. Google loves a site with lots of good, relevant content. Write a blog, write articles, get your friends and colleagues to submit pieces for your site. This is one of the most effective ways to see your site’s traffic grow.
BEST USE OF INTERNAL LINKING TO IMPROVE SEO PERFORMANCE
Remember, the content must be relevant to your site’s mission. If you’re trying to build Gwen’s Online Clothing Store, your content should be about fashion, women’s wear, fashion trends, etc. If you accept an article about online Vegas slots, you can expect that Google will penalize you for that blatant breach of relevant content.
Tracking
Google gives you the tools to track your site so that you can see how many people are visiting, where they’re coming from, which web pages they’re visiting, etc. This can help you build your site and your business — if the Gwen’s Clothing website receives its highest number of hits on its “casual dresses” page, that may indicate that you want to focus your energies on that market.
Google Analytics gives you insights into how users find and use your website. You can also use the analytics to find out how your marketing campaigns are doing and tweak the campaigns to bring the largest number of visitors to your site.
Weebly offers a high-quality website-building tool that allows you to create a professional website that will reach your target audience effectively and efficiently.