Spoiler alert — we aren’t promising you that your website will actually be number one on Google. Let’s just get that out of the way. In fact, if anyone is promising you that, be warned. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is tricky business and getting to the top of organic search results takes a lot more than just lofty promises, keyword stuffing and excessive inbound links. Search engines work to produce quality results and an optimally built website lays the foundation to achieving rankings that matter.

- a well-built and secure content management system (CMS),
- having relevant and engaging content,
- site speed and performance, and
- a good user experience that is mobile-friendly.

Start with the foundation
Not every CMS is created equal when it comes to optimization. Security, clean code and the ability to add tools that help you optimize pages make for a solid foundation for an optimized website.

Make it fast
Your website has the need for speed. Google puts a lot of stock in websites that are fast especially on mobile. How to make your site faster? Use good hosting platform, keep page sizes at a minimum, optimize images for faster loading and hide unnecessary images and content on mobile.

Make it work well for people
User experience is web lingo for making sure people can use the website easily. People matter when it comes to optimization, not just search robots. A good user experience means the website is easy to navigate, designed to work in current browsers, easy to read and interact with and mobile-friendly. Accessibility is also an important factor. Using best practices to make your site accessible is an SEO must.

Make your content shine
According to the SEO experts at Moz:
“Every search performed at the engines comes with an intent—to find, learn, solve, buy, fix, treat, or understand. Search engines place web pages in their results in order to satisfy that intent in the best possible way.”

In essence, creating content that has depth and engages your real customers will give you a better ranking. It’s not just an effort of filling headings and paragraphs with keywords but weaving those keywords into copy in a way that is meaningful to a human.

Analyze and adjust
Now that your site is optimized, it’s time to monitor and make informed changes.

According to Inclind’s SEO analyst, Kelsey Murphy, ”Search Engine Optimization isn’t a one and done deal. Having a great foundation is important, but it’s also something that needs consistent monitoring and updating.That accumulates a lot of data. Knowing how to use that data to identify opportunities and make data driven decisions is what will set your website apart.”

Inclind is a web development agency that specializes in building, optimizing and monitoring the performance of your website. Is your Drupal or WordPress website optimized? Schedule an SEO Audit!