{"id":1866,"date":"2023-06-02T12:55:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T18:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runsleepdesign.com\/?p=1866"},"modified":"2023-06-02T12:58:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T18:58:00","slug":"5-best-things-you-can-do-for-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runsleepdesign.com\/5-best-things-you-can-do-for-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Best things you can do for SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEO ( Search Engine Optimization )<\/strong><\/em> is one of those viral “trend” words going around this year. 90+% of my clients have asked me about SEO and it’s benefits. Whether you are super busy or looking for your first client, I feel EVERY business should NOT<\/strong><\/span> ignore the value of SEO in their space.\u00a0 I’m not saying every business needs to publish 2 articles\/blog posts a week. Even though that would be a great way to get content and knowledge out to your potential customers.\u00a0 But even at the very least having a company ( like Run Sleep Design ) work with you on setting up your website with the basics of SEO will be very beneficial. Having this set up correctly NOW will then save you time and money if and when you want to scale your SEO.\u00a0 There are so many clients that we have on-boarded in the last few years that have ZERO SEO presence or awareness. It’s not your fault, and I am not being critical with other website companies. However, I want to be very clear that YOU CAN DO SOMETHING TODAY<\/strong> for your SEO. I don’t want this to be a huge post, so I will try my best to provide you with the best 5 SEO things you could and should do now!<\/p>\n

#1 Content is KING<\/h2>\n

You have heard it before and they are right. Content is King<\/strong> when it comes to SEO. There are so many facets and layers that can be included with content. I won’t go into every little detail here, but I will give you an idea of what we are talking about.<\/p>\n

You know your business the best. I’m sure every owner could write a book about their unique space. NO, you don’t need to publish a book, but you do need to create content around your products and or business. The small details really matter<\/strong> most on page to page and product to product.<\/p>\n

On-page SEO, start with the TITLE tag<\/h3>\n

First and foremost, you or your web manager will need to go through “page by page” starting with your landing page to organize and edit the important “keywords”, “products” and or “geo-location” of what you are offering. Start at the top, the TITLE of the “page”. Here you want to provide your business AND some sort of local or general geo-location keyword. So for example if we have a business of being an “SEO expert or marketer”, then you would want to put that in the Title of the page. From there, you can add the name of your business or add a geo-location of what area you are wanting to serve. For example if Gunnison and Crested Butte is your area, then you would want to use something like “Crested Butte and Gunnison SEO Expert – Run Sleep Design”.\u00a0 Remember, we are still on your landing page, so researching a bit to come up with a good title here will be very important. When we move to other pages, those titles should reflect what is “on the page”. The TITLE, HEADERS and CONTENT should work in collaboration with each other<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Meta Description<\/h3>\n

Working down the page, we will need to add a “meta description” on each page. The meta description is a small synopsis of what the page is about. It gives the search engines a small snippet on what to show on results.\u00a0 Here you need to mindful of not making it too long. You can use this area to throw in some good keywords that you would want your business to reflect on search results. And to also remember you MUST use these keywords in your content below. Don’t just throw spammy keywords in the meta description that doesn’t make sense or talk about what is on your page.<\/p>\n

Headers<\/h3>\n

Next in line is your HEADER titles. Those are the larger font “titles” that break up the page. They usually are a H1 or H2 tag that search engines love. Use those headers to break up the page with specific “titles” that make up your business or products.\u00a0 The more detailed and specific you can get here, the better. Don’t be spammy, just be authentic about providing a good title for your users.<\/p>\n

Content<\/h3>\n

Last, but not least is the actual content that you provide. This will most likely be wrapped in the “paragraph tag”. This will be where you can mix, match and combine ALL the tips from above to describe in a little more detail. Here you can “emphasize<\/em>“, “bold<\/strong>“, “list- number or bullet”, “link” and “underline<\/span>” some certain keywords that you would want to highlight. When you bold or emphasize a word, remember what you are doing. You are saying that you want the USER ( or search engine ) to take this keyword to be somewhat important. So be diligent and creative here and remember my consistent rule, don’t be spammy.<\/p>\n

If you want to take advantage of creating a list, either numbered or bulleted, then in the content piece will be where you can do this. Some companies have success in providing tips or services-products that they offer in a simple list. Search engines really like the bullet and numbered lists for some reason. If it works for you, then create one!<\/p>\n

Like I said at the beginning, there is a lot more to do with on-page seo, but I want to provide you with an outline on how you should be thinking of your page design and layout.<\/p>\n

#2 Sitemap what ?<\/h2>\n

The next important thing you could and should do right away is make sure your website has a sitemap AND then make sure to submit it to the relevant search engines that you want to work with.\u00a0 A sitemap is a structured document that maps your entire website on one page. Post and pages that you want the search engines to crawl. Remember, when you submit and create a sitemap, you should be asking what pages and posts do I want to submit or be prioritized when crawling. There may be some posts or pages that you do not want to come up in search engines. Most of the time you can include a “no-index” on those pages. You also don’t want to include those in your sitemap either. There are a lot of tools that can easily do the hard-work of creating and configuring your sitemap for you.\u00a0 They do have to be in a certain structured format before you submit them to the search engines, but most content management systems<\/a> like WordPress will have plugins that will do this for you.<\/p>\n

Submit your Sitemap<\/h3>\n

Once you are satisfied with your sitemap, you will then need to submit this. I will use the example of submitting your website sitemap to Google here. You will first need to sign up and verify you are the owner of your domain with Google Search Console Tools ( formerly Google Webmaster Tools )<\/a>\u00a0 Once you sign up ( free by the way ), you will add your domain and then you will have to verify that you own the domain by adding a DNS value to your domain. There will also be a way you can add a meta value to your website for verification as well. Either way, if you are having trouble here, just reach out to your webmaster for some help!<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a>Once you verify, you can go to the “Sitemap” section page to upload your sitemap. Once you submit your sitemap, then you will be notified if there are any errors that you may need to fix. But most times, if you used a tool, then you will be good to go. The sitemap submission for your website is basically telling Google to check this a few times a day for new content that you have prioritized.<\/p>\n

The Google Search Console is invaluable to any webmaster or business owner. You can learn a lot about errors and tips on how to tweak and improve your SEO presence.<\/p>\n

#3 Be Authentic, not spammy<\/h2>\n

I’m not going to go into too much detail here as I think the title speaks for itself. Knowing your business and not trying to game the system with SPAMMY content, reviews and posts will be important. Remember that if you respect these search engines and play by their rules, then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. It’s those certain businesses or people that try to game the system and get banned or demoted in page ranking. So, be careful here to follow the rules. The search engines usually have a change-log that they publish once a month on certain changes they have for their SEO policy. It’s not an easy read, but for those interested, here are a few links for you:<\/p>\n