Five ways to improve your site's ranking (SEO).
These are SEO tips to increase your search engine ranking (SEO). Watch your website climb the ranks to the top search engine results.
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| Image credit by Sajid Nazeer |
1. Publishing Original, Relevant Content
Your search engine rankings are driven by quality, authoritative content. This is especially true for SEO marketing. Your site's authority will increase and your relevance will be improved by creating content that is tailored to your audience. You can improve your web writing skills to make yourself an authority on the topic that you are writing about.
Keywords
For each page of authoritative content on your website, identify and target a specific keyword term. Consider how your reader might search for the page using search terms such as:
- online masters in engineering management
- What is biomedical engineering?
- Title IX Education Resources
- Photographing the northern lights
- How to apply for scholarships
- When is the FAFSA deadline
- What is the difference between engineering technology and engineering?
Multiple keyword phrases
A webpage cannot achieve search engine rankings for multiple keyword terms unless they are very similar. One page can rank for both "biomedical engineer jobs" and "biomedical engineers careers". It is not possible to rank for "student affairs" or "dean of student" or "gender discrimination and "violence reporting procedure" on a single page.
You will need a separate webpage to rank for each keyword phrase that you are targeting.
Placing Keywords
Consider these questions after you have chosen your keyword phrase for a page:
- Can I use part of the keyword phrase in my page URL?
- Can I include a keyword phrase in the page title or just a portion?
- Is it possible to use part of the keyword phrase in page headers and subheadings?
These questions can help you rank higher in search engines. However, natural and user-friendly are important. You don't want the words "engineering" appearing three times in your URL, nor the phrase Northern Lights repeated within the page title or every heading. Search engine optimization is still not as important as readability and usability.
Content
content has the greatest impact on search engine rankings. You should repeat your keyword phrase multiple times on the page. This includes once or twice in the opening paragraph and closing paragraphs and up to four times throughout the rest of the content. Be authoritative. Link strategically to relevant sources and additional information, both within your organization's website and to other useful websites.
bold, italics and heading tags (especially H1) are all good options to highlight keyword phrases. But don't go overboard. Your writing style and language should still read naturally. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. SEO is not something you should sacrifice. To help you discover new content opportunities, learn more about SEO Marketing.
2. Keep your content current
You may have noticed that we are passionate about content. Search engines do, too. The best indicator of a site's relevance is regularly updated content. So make sure you keep it current. You can audit your content using a set schedule and make any necessary updates.
Blogging
Your search engine rankings can be boosted by adding additional content rich in keyword phrases to your departmental newsblog. Blog posts can be as short as one-page updates on the topics you are interested in. If it is helpful to the reader, interlink related CMS pages and blog posts if you have more information.
3. Metadata
Each page should have a space between them when designing your website. Tags to add metadata or information about your page. This data will be prepopulated if your CMS site was originally created by UMC's web team. It is important that you review and update your metadata as your site evolves.
Metadata Title
Title metadata determines the page titles that appear at the top and the headline in search engine results. It is the most important metadata for your page.
The web team has created an automated system to create the meta title for every webpage for CMS websites. It is based on the page title. This underscores the importance of page titles that are well-written and rich in keyword phrases.
Description Metadata
Description metadata The textual description that a browser might use in a page search return. It is your website's window display. It provides a brief and attractive description of what it contains, in order to encourage people to visit. A meta description should contain at least two sentences. Although search engines might not use your meta description every time, it is important to provide them with the option.
Keyword Metadata
Keyword meta is rarely used to calculate search engine rankings. It is a good idea to know your keyword phrases so you can add them to your keyword metadata. A variety of phrases is a good idea. It is best to limit it to 3-7 phrases, with each phrase being between 1-4 words. Computer science degrees are a great example.
4. Link-worthy sites are encouraged
A website that is informative, authoritative, unbiased and helps visitors find out more about their topic is most likely to attract links from other websites. This improves search engine optimization.
Add relevant links to your text to increase authority and credibility. Instead of using "click here" links to your destination, you can write the name of it. "Click Here" does not have any search engine values beyond the URL attached, While "Michigan Tech Enterprise Program", rich in keywords, will increase your search engine rankings and the rank of the page you're linking to. Use descriptive links to link keywords. This not only improves search engine SEO but also adds value for your readers, even those who have disabilities or are using screen readers.
5. Use alt tags
Use alt tags to describe your image or video media. These tags allow search engines to find your page. This is especially important for screen readers and text-only users.