Are you a website owner or a professional blogger and would like to know how to be referenced on search engines? You are not the only one! All web entrepreneurs ask themselves, have asked themselves and will ask themselves this question again one day or another. The least we can say is that the race for 1st place in Google results and the featured snippet is strewn with pitfalls. So how to properly reference your website? I give you 7 pro tips to improve your natural referencing and never disappear under the floating bar again. Ready to take notes? Let's go!
Prepare your SEO strategy as soon as possible
Thinking about your SEO strategy even before your website goes live is the best way to carve out a place for yourself in the SERP (results page). This saves you valuable time by adopting good SEO practices from the start. Remember to optimize the URL addresses of your website. If your site is already online, you can rework it by following these tips.
1 – Design a mobile-friendly website
More than 50% of Internet users do their research on their smartphone. It is therefore imperative to offer a website adapted to this type of screen. You can decide to create a mobile version of your website. But this solution is expensive and can cause duplicate content problems.
Opting for a responsive web design (RWD) is often the best solution. This allows your site to adapt to any type of screen: phone, computer, tablet, etc. Additionally, we have entered the era of mobile-first. Understand that Google's algorithm is now based on the mobile version to index a website. The desktop version, for computer, is seen relayed to the second rank.
2 – Alternate free referencing and paid referencing
All the experts will tell you: nothing beats a good natural referencing. This is the best way to build a solid following. However, not everything is to be thrown away in paid referencing.
SEO for the long term
When someone asks you how to properly reference their website, you could just tell them to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Its main advantage is to bring qualified organic traffic. The user deliberately chooses to click on your URL in the SERP, after typing a keyword related to your business. He therefore has a good chance of being interested in your products. This is the principle of inbound marketing. Natural referencing techniques therefore ensure a better conversion rate than paid ads.
The SEA and social networks to start
Improving its natural referencing is often a long process for a new website. Paid referencing – or SEA (Search Engine Advertising) can be a good ghostwriting way to highlight your website, appearing above the fold line. In addition to a Google Ads campaign, consider using your social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Mastering the SMO (Social Media Optimization) allows many emerging sites to retain their first Internet users.
3 – Perform realistic keyword research
Keyword research (or keyword query) is the nerve of war in natural referencing. No matter what industry your business is in, you probably have some idea of the keywords you'd like to rank for. But unless you're aiming for a niche market, you're likely to stumble upon a bone: the most interesting queries have strong competition.
If your website has a great reputation, you can try your luck in the race for the 1st position of Google. Maybe even aim for the featured snippet (position 0). Otherwise, it may be more interesting to work with long tail keywords and low search volume keywords.
As you will have understood, choosing relevant keywords and making an editorial plan is not an easy task. You have to take into account the search volume, the competition, the conversion potential of the query, etc. This is why it is advisable to request an SEO content audit from a web editor specialized in SEO, before ordering articles.
Improve your natural referencing by publishing new content regularly
How to properly reference your website, once you have identified your keywords? To hope to have your site first on Google and attract prospects, you must put new content online regularly. A stopped site does not interest the leader of search engines. You will also need to learn the concepts of web writing. Here are some tips to make it easier for you.
4 – Hire an SEO web editor
If you are unfamiliar with SEO web writing, you may think that it is possible to reference your website yourself. But it is not enough to optimize the title tag or the meta description to improve its natural referencing. Writing a good blog article or an optimized site page also means:
- have a good editorial level;
- understand search intent;
- be an SEO expert;
- master the HTML language;
- work the internal mesh;
- etc.
Succeeding in offering optimized and relevant content requires real know-how. Hiring an SEO web editor ensures good results, while offering real added value to the reader. This serves to reduce the bounce rate and to obtain quality backlinks, without a net linking campaign. This is what earns the trust of Google and improves the authority of a website.
5 – Analyze the SEO results of your website
That's it, have you found a great web editor? That's good, but now is not the time to rest on your laurels! It is very important to regularly analyze the statistics of its website. For this, you can use Google Analytics, Google Search Console or some plugins on your CMS (WordPress, Shopify, Prestation, etc.). The data you collect will allow you to refine your SEO strategy and update your editorial planning. You're going to tell me that's not your job. And you are right! This is why it is important to know how to delegate the writing of your website.
Take care of the user experience to properly reference your website
To the question “how to properly reference your website on Google ", we often just answer by addressing the editorial content. However, the user experience is at the heart of the concerns of this web giant. Here we will discuss the technical aspect of UX (User experience). To go further, a very comprehensive article by Lucie Rondelet and Morgane Caroline allows you to understand SXO (Search experience Optimization) in more detail.
6 – Build an intuitive tree structure
A good tree structure often makes the difference between two websites with similar content. A user who easily finds what he is looking for in 2 or 3 clicks will come back often. On the other hand, an internal linking devoid of logic will discourage many users and increase the bounce rate. It's up to you to choose your structure according to the nature of your site.
An e-commerce specializing in high-tech products may opt for classic silos (category pages) corresponding to its products: IT, connected objects, etc. Another method is to study the questions of Internet users on a specific theme and create a semantic cocoon (set of articles) to answer them. The first approach is based on supply and the second on demand.
In addition to improving the UX, a clear structure allows for quick indexing of your new pages by making it easier for Googlebot’s to pass. It is also used to display sitelinks under your title tag, in the Google results page. They give direct access to multiple URLs when someone searches for your site name.
Examples of sitelinks
7 – Reduce loading times
The loading speed of a web page is arguably one of the most important factors in user experience. Who has never lost patience in front of their computer screen, waiting forever for a website to load completely? To avoid exploding your bounce rate, you must absolutely reduce the format of the images as well as their size. Also remember not to overload a website page with unnecessary photos, videos or GIFs.
Did you survive this avalanche of information? Congratulations, you've done half the job. Once you know how to properly reference your website, it's time to practice. And that's good, you've come to the right place. Web puts you in touch with handpicked SEO web editors. Whether you need an SEO content audit or freelance writers to follow your briefings, you will find the profile you need in one click. Build your team in 5 minutes and start conquering the web!
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