Improving search engine optimization on an Existing website

Unless your website was constructed this year in 2020 and included search engine optimization, you can bet your SEO is out of date and behind the latest improvements. Even with a recently built website, you may still need an SEO update as Google changes the search engine game constantly.

If you're finding your site buried in results, you could probably increase your search engine visibility or ranking just by adding Basic SEO to your site.

Many  websites, especially those built by non-professionals have little to no SEO. Or the website SEO is out of date compared to websites built by experts with ongoing SEO services. Editing or adding SEO to any website can quickly pay for itself with just one lead in most cases. Especially if you use your website for lead generation.

Hello! How do I get my website on the Google?

Glad you asked! 

To determine whether you should work on your SEO, you first need to find out what shape your website is currently in and whether or not you will DIY your SEO or hire a professional. 

A qualified SEO auditor will include a full onsite website check as a routine part of a whole-website SEO assessment. For businesses with a physical location that is visited by customers, an off-site SEO Audit involving mapping and business directory listing is also recommended. 

What is an SEO Audit?

An SEO Audit also known as an SEO assessment, will help identify areas of your website that are in need of improvements. (Before you work on adding SEO, you need to know where exactly you are weak and where to make improvements.)

If you don't want to hire a professional  SEO Auditor, you need to find out the following for yourself:

• Is your website functioning properly?
• What type of platform you have?
• What is the strength or weakness of your network? (also known as links to and from your site).  
   

This is just the bare minimum but it's a good starting point.

If you have a newer professionally built website, you can probably get some of this information from the developer. If you have an older website, you'll have to read up on the latest guidelines (and rules) for search engine ranking and visibility so you can adequately inspect the SEO as search engine methods are constantly changing.

Inspecting and Evaluating Your SEO

Find information regarding the following:

🌎 Loading speed

🌎 Background Code

🌎 Image sizing

🌎 Alt tags

🌎 H1, H2 and H3 Headers

🌎 Page titles length

🌎 URL structure

🌎 Content 

The structural elements can be weak or need attention in these areas which makes it easier to see what type of edits you need to make. 

Inspect these items with an SEO Audit:

1. Start with the domain, is it indexed on Google and Bing? 

2. Test the inbound and outbound links.

3. Test desktop and mobile loading speeds.

4. Look for optimized images with Alt tags.

5. Inspect headers, url file names, titles, meta descriptions, meta tags

6. Check structured data. Schema / JSON. Do you have JSON?

7. Check content, do you have enough text on each page?

Once you've determined the areas that need work, you can refine the SEO on your website.

Need a free SEO Tool to test your site?

Use the Google Lighthouse audit to get a quick view of where your site needs work. 

Determining Recommended SEO Changes

When you find the gaps in your SEO, either from an SEO Audit, your web designer / web developer, Marketing or SEO Professional - you can then focus on the issues yourself or hire a developer to close the gaps and holes to maximize your website's search visibility.

Estimating Costs and Payback of hiring a Professional

The Google Lighthouse Test is a great method to quickly test your website and provides some recommendations on possible SEO edits.

Deciding What Type of SEO changes you need

If you decide to audit your website, review the results to help you decide what you need to work on first and what requires the most attention.

Do you need to optimize your site for speed? Is your server too slow? Do you need to change web hosts? 

Are you missing metatags, metadescriptions and proper headers, etc?

Is your issue a lack of quality networking with links inbound to your website? 

Your audit will be like a physical check up for your site. 

Need an Audit or help with your Website SEO? Contact Us.