It indeed takes both time and effort to rank high on the first page of search engines. But some easy-to-implement SEO techniques can produce better results for your website. You should always perform an audit before initiating SEO for your website and this will help you to prioritize your actions. Following are the successful SEO techniques:
A. Titles, Meta Descriptions and Headings Optimization: Make sure that you target proper keywords for each web page and this will help you to achieve a high conversion rate. Include these keywords in Title Tag & Headings of pages. Keywords should also be there in Meta Descriptions and this will convince people to click your link.
B. Tracking Codes Implementation: You cannot analyze the issues of your website if you do not have tracking codes in place. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two important tools that can assist you to monitor rankings of keywords, organic search traffic and more. We suggest you implement all tracking codes using Google Tag Manager. In-depth analysis is possible with Hotjar and Heatmap where you can analyze user behavior on web pages of your website.
C. Google Business Listing: This is something that people cannot steal from you. Provide great value to your website by using Google My Business. Your website will be easily located even if it is not ranking very well in search engines. Make sure that all required details are submitted correctly while you claim ownership of your business. Build trust with your clients by adding nice photographs of your products, location and team.
D. SSL Certificate Installation: In the last five years, sharing of data on the web has increased and Cybercrime has been on the rise constantly. SSL installation is pretty easy and your hosting provider can help you with the same.
E. Breadcrumbs: They create structure within your website and thus beneficial to your web pages. Breadcrumbs is a website navigation technique that appears horizontally near the top of a web page.
F. Image Optimization: This technique must be considered in your SEO strategy. The images are the ones that take the most time to load because they take the most physical space on your server. Image Optimization is defined as reducing the size of images without affecting the quality on the screen.
G. Website Speed: The impact of images on the site's loading speed is on a higher side but some other elements need to be taken into consideration. Use Page Speed Insights and GT Metrix to monitor the issues and minimize the resources needed to load a web page.
H. Social Media Profiles: Get initial backlinks to your website using social media profiles. Popular ones are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
I. Customized 404 Page: If an internet address is not found while accessing your website, a browser will display a 404 error message. Visitors landing on a 404 page will leave the site immediately. Thus you will have to fix this issue by creating a custom design for your 404 page.
J. Quality Content: Must post quality content regularly and this notifies Google that your website is active. You should create blog posts because these are more likely to be shared by interested people. This activity also helps to earn new backlinks.
K. Mobile Friendly Website: As per the latest updates, Google has moved to a mobile first indexing process. SEO process becomes effective if your website is mobile friendly.
L. Acquire Backlinks: It is not easy to find link building opportunities in digital marketing. Perform a competitive analysis and acquire high quality backlinks that are proven to work.
Your rankings will improve with the above listed SEO techniques. The use of different actions in the SEO list depends on each case. It might be not easy to implement all SEO strategies but these would not put your website at any risk of getting penalized.