In my last article I talked about claiming and optimizing your Google Places Page. Today I’m going to bring things a little closer to home.
Last time I told you that there are several things you can do to improve your search results in mobile search. The second step to getting your online house in order is to analyze your very own website. Now, don’t be frightened by that notion because I’m going to share with you a few tools that will make this step pretty simple.
Your Site in Different Browsers
First, look at your site in multiple browsers. The main ones are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and, for those on a Mac, Safari. Now, look at your site on your mobile phone. Ask friends with different types of mobile devices to look at it and see what it looks like on as many devices as possible. How does it look? Is everything showing up correctly? Are all the images and formatting in place?
Update Your About Us Page
Second, take a look at your “About Us” page. Read…Every…Word. Make sure that all the information is accurate and up-to-date. You will also want to include links on that page to your social media profiles. This helps to tie your entire online presence together and makes it easy for people to find you.
Check for Spelling and Grammar
Third, check all of the pages of your site for spelling and grammar. Your website is supposed to be a reflection of your businesses and you want your business to have a professional image, right? Well, poor grammar and typos throughout your site don’t convey a lot of trust to me. One or two, here and there might be ok, but when they are on every page, no way.
A good, free tool you can use to spell check your entire site is called CheckDog.com. They will scan up to 100 pages of your site, which should be plenty for most of our readers, and provide you a report of all the likely, possible and unlikely spelling errors on your site. You will need to provide a valid email address to get the full report.
Do Your Keyword Research
Fourth, do some keyword research using Google’s Free Keyword Research Tool. We’re getting a little more advanced here but this step is still easy enough to do on your own. Find the keywords that you feel most people searching for your product or service would use. Then look at how much search volume your keyword phrase has and how much competition.
You are looking for phrases that have relatively high search volume and low competition. I know, that sounds like your going to be searching for a needle in a haystack, but I am sure you will find some gems you can use.
Optimize Your Site
Fifth, go through your site and optimize it for the keywords you found in the previous step. You may need to write some new content if you don’t already have a page on your site directly relating to each phrase you found. Each page should focus on one keyword phrase. If they are closely related you may be able to work in two or three.
Now, from an SEO perspective you need to look at a lot more data. The best, free tool I have found to do that is WebsiteGrader.com. The tool will go through and grade your site and show you how it compares to your competitors and what you can do to improve your grade.
That’s it for today. Did I miss anything? Do you have a comment or thought you would like to share? Let me know in the comments section below.
If you need help with all of this check out our SEO Plans or give me a call and let’s talk.
To your success,
Ken Partain
512-651-2963
