I just finished up a conference call going over some SEO strategies for a client. During the conversation, our Google/SEO expert listed off a few ideas that help make Google especially happy. When she started ticking down the list, nothing was ground breaking – you could easily read about any of the things she mentioned in a million different articles on the internet.
So why would doing any of these things really make a difference? In fact, they’re so elementary – you’ve already gotten them taken care of right?
That’s what I thought.
But she challenged us to put our own sites to the test. And she also mentioned that some of her largest clients actually don’t do so well in most of these categories. After looking at my own sites and most of those I frequent, I was shocked to see that almost all of them (myself included) was missing out on some of the easily scored SEO from Google. So I pose the same question she did at the end of our call:
“Why wouldn’t you be taking advantage of that “low-hanging [SEO] fruit” (i.e., the easy stuff that doesn’t require something going viral or you sharing it a million times on Facebook)?
You wanna see the list now right?
Here you go.
- A Contact Page
- a freestanding page, not a sidebar
- needs to include some type of email (i.e., info@yourdomain.com) or physical address to provide legitimacy (just one of those contact forms that basically says “thanks for the note, we’ll contact you” without you providing an email address or PO Box isn’t enough)
- If you’re using a contact form, make sure to add in some personalized text like a “Hey! We love emails…”
- An About Page
- a freestanding page, not a sidebar on the landing or blog page (those are great, but not enough)
- update it frequently
- this can be a “personal stuff” paragraph that says “I love popsicles, flip-flops and snowstorms… right now I’m crushing on… and my favorite post to date is….”
- Call to Action
- above the fold or scroll on the homepage
- NO passive text (i.e., “Receive cool stuff in your inbox from me…”) Active text is a must “Sign Up Now!” “Be a Rockstar”, “Enter your email address & click to get access to a whole lotta AWESOME!”
- Homepage Title Tag aka Meta Title
- If you’re new to this or have no idea what a Meta Title is, read here
- Under 80 characters
- Uses keywords
- sounds like a human rather than a laundry list
- If you want to read a ton about this kind of stuff, read here
- Products or Services Page
- a freestanding page
- for those that share information rather than selling products, putting together a page that includes your best or most popular posts, or a START HERE page would do the trick.
How does your site look? Have you conducted a site review lately? I’d love to hear in the comments.