Search engine optimization (SEO) can seem like a daunting task because it is incredibly complex and labor intensive.
Fortunately, there are a few simple SEO tasks that don’t require a Ph.D. in computer science or a lifetime of experience in the SEO industry to execute and, if performed properly, can result in significant organic traffic. They will require a fair amount of time and hard work, but the return on investment can be substantial.
Improve page speed and mobile performance
Most people underestimate how long they think it takes their website to load. This is a critical, but often overlooked, metric that goes far beyond the vanity of the developer. The speed at which a web page loads plays a powerful role in where it ranks on Google. It also influences how long a visitor stays on a website and whether they end up converting—whether that means becoming a lead by filling out a form or calling or becoming a customer by purchasing a product or service online.
Earlier this year Google released research in which they concluded, “The average time it takes to fully load the average mobile landing page is 22 seconds. However, research also indicates 53% of people will leave a mobile page if it takes longer than three seconds to load.“
This is even more important when it comes to mobile traffic because these devices operate with significantly less bandwidth than a typical desktop computer. Some contractors may be shocked to learn just how much of their traffic comes from mobile devices. In fact, mobile now accounts for 57% of all search traffic. This shouldn’t be a surprise for this industry, especially when considering that employees often need to look things up from the jobsite.
Generally, the faster a web page loads, the better it will perform—in terms of organic ranking as well as user experience and conversions into leads or customers.
Though the process of improving page speed is complex and in-depth, detailed instructions are available in a recent article on Search Engine Land.
Implement a proper URL structure and breadcrumbs
The URL structure—that’s the part of a web page’s address after the .com—is an important ranking signal that helps Google not only to understand what a website is about but also to establish a hierarchy of the pages in that website.
Most websites get this wrong by using a flat architecture. For example, the URL of a page for asphalt roofing shingles might look like this: https://yourdomain.com/asphalt-shingles/.
That is not optimal and doesn’t give search engines like Google the additional context needed to properly rank that page. A better choice would be: https://yourdomain.com/roofing/shingles/asphalt-shingles/.
Typically, two or three levels deep is all that’s needed, but there may be some outlying cases where additional levels are necessary.
It’s also important to point out that before changing the URL structure of a website, it’s critical to implement proper 301 redirects from each of the old page URLs to the new locations. This automatically forwards visitors to the new page if they follow a link or bookmark to the old page; more importantly, they signal to the search engines that the content on the old URL has permanently moved to the new location.
Create and optimize internal links
Internal links are when content on a website contains links to other content on the same website. While these links usually don’t carry the same weight and authority that links from other websites do, they can have a positive impact on organic ranking for two reasons.
- They help signal to Google the relative importance of particular pages on a website. Generally, the more relevant and high-quality pages a website contains, the more opportunities there will be to implement internal links, but this is something all websites can benefit from.
- They help keep visitors on a website longer and encourage them to visit more pages while there. This is a signal that indicates a positive user experience to Google, which helps to boost organic ranking as well.
Leverage existing relationships for inbound links
Inbound links from other websites are essential to ranking for competitive terms. Unfortunately, earning the kind of relevant and authoritative links that are necessary to rank for competitive terms that also meet Google’s Webmaster Guidelines is difficult, to say the least. Especially considering that it’s an ongoing process.
One way to accomplish this is to leverage existing relationships, which might include:
- Vendors and suppliers;
- Subcontractors;
- Industry associations;
- Customers;
- Non-local competitors; and
- Industry publications.
The key here is that a website linking to another website must be relevant or the link won’t carry any weight. That link should also be placed in a useful and relevant piece of content, such as an article or case study that is original, hasn’t been published anywhere else before and is six hundred words or more.
Prune low-quality and low-traffic pages
Producing content regularly is an important part of SEO, but over time it can occasionally result in pages that are low quality or pages that receive little traffic. This bogs Google down from crawling the quality content that exists on the website.
This situation requires the occasional pruning, or deleting, of these pages. Depending on the size of a website and the frequency in which new content is published, this may be something that is performed once a year, or it might be performed as frequently as every quarter.
To determine whether a page should be removed, start off by identifying all low-quality pages in terms of length and usefulness of the content. From here, determine if the content is simply no longer relevant and useful—indicating the page should be deleted—or if it is still relevant and useful, which indicates the page should be improved.
Once this determination has been made, delete any pages necessary and set up a 301 redirect to the most relevant page that still exists.
