When it comes to maximizing your online presence in Chicago, SEO plays a pivotal role. Implementing SEO best practices can enhance your website’s rankings across major search engines. When your website ranks higher, it attracts more traffic. This is because the higher your position on the search results page, the greater the likelihood that someone will click on your page.
This means you should adhere to best practices to boost your website’s rankings. By doing so, you can ensure your website appears near the top of search engine results pages, which is where you want it to be to attract more customers.
Chicago SEO Scholar
This is a company that specializes in helping you reach the peak of search engine rankings (you can visit their website here). They diligently follow industry best practices to ensure your online presence receives the exposure you desire, ultimately placing your name at the top of search results.
Chicago SEO Scholar
55 E Monroe St Suite 3800 Chicago, IL 60603
(312) 529-8226
https://www.chicagoseoscholar.com/
While partnering with experts can greatly enhance your website’s SEO performance, it’s equally important to understand the foundational SEO practices that make a difference. These practices serve as the bedrock of successful SEO campaigns and provide a solid foundation for your online presence.
Best Practices
1. Align with Search Intent
Let’s begin with search intent, also known as user intent, which refers to the purpose or goal of the user’s search query. For instance, when you search for ‘how to make cookies,’ the user’s intent is to find cookie recipes. If you search for ‘buy cookies,’ the user’s intent is to find places where cookies are available for purchase.
When you search for ‘how to make cookies,’ the search results will display numerous pages containing cookie recipes to help you. On the other hand, if you search for ‘buy cookies,’ you will find listings of places where you can buy cookies. Both types of queries will display the results you’re looking for.
There are four different types of search intent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83aDlCwmlns. They are as follows:
Informational – when someone is searching for information about something.
Navigational – someone is looking for a specific website.
Commercial – someone is looking for more information before making a purchase.
Transactional – someone is looking to make a transaction.
2. Use Primary Keywords
You should have a primary keyword, one that most accurately represents your content, on each of your website’s pages. Having a primary keyword is essential for your pages to gain visibility on Google. Additionally, it’s important to consider the strategic placement of this keyword.
The best places for your primary keywords are in the title tag, your main headers, your introduction, and your URL. These places will get your page noticed by Google and other search engines. There are tools on the internet that will help you to find just the right keywords.
3. Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Two of the most important meta tags are your title and your meta description. Title tags are those which appear in your headline which show up on your search engine result pages, or SERPs. You want to make sure that you don’t do keyword stuffing, because these could work the opposite of what you expect.
Meta descriptions are those descriptions that appear below your title, and it describes your page. Learn more about meta descriptions here. Your aim should be to capture users’ attention with these descriptions, and it’s important to have a unique meta description for each page.
4. Optimize Your Images
You want to put many images that relate to your subject matter on your page. Make sure that you begin with the best file format such as JPEG or PNG. You need to use the right formats in the right places.
A JPEG is best if you are just showing an image. PNG is best if you are adding any type of text to your image. Both are good for different things, and you need to know which is best for your page.
5. Optimize Your Page Loading Speed
Your page loading speed is really important for Google and other search engines. This is especially important on mobile devices. You want your page to load as quickly as possible.
There are ways to make sure that your page is loading at a reasonable speed. There are tools on the internet that can help you to do this. These tools can also help you to find where you need to fix your page to help it load faster.
6. Internal Linking Structure
You can use internal links to boost your rankings on search engines. These internal links will set up a hierarchy of information for your website. This also helps search engines to understand your website better.
SEO best practices tell you to add internal links to the pages that have trouble on your website. These links can draw users to the pages and the information that you want them to see. You will want to link old pages that have been performing well to new pages that are still struggling.
7. You Want to Improve the Experience for Users
User experience, or UX, is a large factor in improving your search rankings. You can increase this in many ways, including using headings and subheadings, making your content visually appealing, and avoiding pop-ups. You could also use all your white space and make sure that your site is mobile friendly.
8. URLs Should Be SEO-Friendly
To enhance the SEO-friendliness of your URLs, consider using shorter URLs, incorporating your target keywords, and adding categories or subfolders as needed. These practices speed up the discovery of your page by search engines and increase its visibility among a broader audience.
9. Earn Authoritative Backlinks
If you have backlinks to your page, Google looks at that as if you are someone that can be trusted. If you have many of them, you are more likely to have a higher ranking on SERPs. You need to be careful, though, because not all backlinks are the same.
10. Create Content that is Useful
You want to create content that is useful to others. It doesn’t need to be long; it just needs to be relevant to others. You can make sure that it is relevant by keeping it up to date.
Final Thoughts
To enhance your online presence in Chicago, partnering with experts is the first step in achieving greater visibility and growth. Equally important is familiarizing yourself with these strategies/practices to ensure your business gets the attention it needs.