Here are 10 simple SEO tips for websites. If your website is new, then it is going to take some time for it to become established on the internet and start attracting visitors. However, there are quite a few things you can do to get better search engine rankings and more traffic much sooner.

Let’s take the example of our very own website : www.indiatraveljobs.com.

1. Target low competition keywords at the outset

We recently launched our site www.indiatraveljobs.com, it has a very low authority on Google and hence it ranks much below established competitors for high competition keywords. While there is nothing to stop us targeting those keywords, the quickest way to generate new traffic to our site is to target those keywords which are less competitive.

For example, Indiatraveljobs.com is a site dedicated to travel industry jobs across India. We decided to incorporate these keywords : Travel jobs in Mumbai , Travel jobs in Delhi , Travel jobs in Bangalore .

You can check how competitive a keyword is by using Google’s Keyword Planner.

2. Always put your main keyword in your page’s title tag

Search engines use title tags and other meta information to determine the subject matter of each page or post on your website. When you create your new website, the page title tag has to have the most important keyword or term included. This way, when someone searches for that term, search engines will see that your page has relevant content. We would definitely recommend investing in a good content writer who also has atleast a basic knowledge of SEO.

3. Write titles for searchers, not search engines

Getting ranked number one in Google does not guarantee you any traffic. People will come to your site only if they click the results. So, whenever you write the title of your page or blog post, you have to write it in a way that will make the reader want to click on it. It has to grab attention and be compelling.

For example, Indiatraveljobs.com also has a learning platform called ITJ e-Learning where we host presentations, webinars, fact sheets and other information from Hotels, Resorts, DMCs, Tourism Boards, Cruise Lines. Hence, we use these titles to help our visitors click on the content they are interested in.

Moreover, this encourages casual visitors to register on our website. Titles that contain relevant words like e-Learning, on-line knowledge , on-demand, when you need, and where you need signifies that users can access our content at their convenience.

4. Make sure your title doesn’t get cut off

Space is precious in search engine results. But when it comes to titles, only about the first 70 characters get shown – sometimes less for mobile devices. Also, the length for meta descriptions is about 100 characters.

So if you use titles and meta descriptions that are too long, they will get cut off midway through. As a result, this can have a negative effect on click-through rates as searchers want all the information in front of them before deciding whether to click or not.

5. Don’t put things in the way of your content

When searchers choose to visit your site, they expect to find the content they have searched for as soon as they land on your page. To make sure this happens, don’t force them to scroll half way down the page before seeing the title and don’t bombard them with adverts and pop-ups.

Google pays particular attention to what it calls ‘above the fold’ content: i.e., the content you see before scrolling. They don’t want to see browser-sized images with no text, nor do they want it full of header ads. To rank well and to keep visitors on your site, give them what they are looking for the moment they land.

6. Optimise your images

A lot of people search for products by doing an image search. However, if they see something they like the look of, they’ll visit the site directly from the Google’s image results. For instance, if you sell products on your website and have lots of images, you can turn these into ranking opportunities by optimising them.

All you need to do is add a description to the alt text tag, for example, <img src=“photo-of-handmade-chocolate.png” alt=“delicious homemade chocolate” />.

As you can see from the example above, it can also help to change the actual image name from the number given by your camera DCSN-846368.png to something search engines can read, e.g., ‘photo-of-handmade-chocolate.png.

7. Use accelerated mobile pages (AMP)

You can improve your search engine rankings by improving the speed at which your website loads. One of the best ways to do this for mobile devices is by using accelerated mobile pages. These are lightweight versions of web pages designed to load very quickly on phones.

AMP pages already rank highly in mobile searches, so don’t miss out. 66% of our surfing is now done on mobile devices. Another key to faster loading times is to make sure that your web host runs your website on a high-performance, fast loading server.

8. Keep your website fresh

Search engines like to promote websites that are regularly updated with new or refreshed content. If you’ve got a new website, you won’t have anything that needs updating straight away, but it can be a big help, SEO-wise, to add new content to it regularly.

One of the best ways to do this is through adding a weekly or bi-weekly blog post. The sooner you begin to develop a blog, the better it can be for your ranking. And remember, you can use blog post to send people to your website.

9. Add internal links

There’s a well-known phrase in SEO called ‘link juice’ and this refers to the fact that when you link from one page to another, some of the ranking power of the linking page will pass to the linked-to page.

So, if you have a page that gets lots of traffic and want other pages to rank higher, add an internal link from the high-ranking page to the pages whose ranking you want to see increased. Don’t overdo it, though: too many links will dilute the link juice.

10. Submit a sitemap to Google Search Console

Google Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools, is one of the most important set of tools you can use to help for your site’s SEO. One of the things it enables you to do is upload a sitemap of your website.

When you upload a sitemap, Google will then crawl your site and index all the pages, posts, images and other content it can find. Once Google indexes these items, can they be found on in search results. If you resubmit your sitemap every time you update your website, Google will always have an up-to-date knowledge of your content.

You can open a Google Search Console account for free.

Hope you liked reading this blog, let us know your comments and views as well as the topics you would like to learn more about.