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READ THIS BEFORE GETTING STARTED PLZ & THANKS 🌀
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There are a million definitions for SEO, but like I said, we’re keeping it simple. SEO, or ‘search engine optimization’, is how you optimize your website for search engines like Google, Bing, and now AI platforms. They are looking for:
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I want you to think of your website SEO like building a big mind map (hear me out)
Your website sections, pages, and blogs are essentially telling search engines a story of what you are about, what you do, what you know, and how that can help other people.
(I could go on for hours about the benefits of strong SEO, but for current purposes, use this as your guide — enjoy, and if you want to yap about everything SEO, you know where to find me!)
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Fixing broken links is one of those spring cleaning tasks that gives you a breath of fresh air after. But, if you have a lot of outdated content or blogs, it can feel overwhelming. Not to worry!
Use a tool like **Free Broken Link Checker** so you don’t have to go through every link manually, or for more data, use a SEO tool like **Ubersuggest.**
If there are a few, great! If there are tons, don’t freak out. Look for the ones that are showing up over and over again, since this might be on one part of your site, pulling on every page.
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In the spirit of fixing your broken links, you can also make any future broken links work in your favor. Your 404 page is your ‘error’ page when you have a broken link — did you know you can customize these on your site?
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You wouldn’t want Google to have to guess what your page is about, right? Your page titles and meta descriptions are the very first point of connection for people finding you through search.
Go through each website page, and make sure to update with relevant keywords, and don’t be afraid to give a call-to-action. Here is an example for my About page:
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Remember when we were talking about fixing broken links earlier? Your ‘slug’ is what comes after the backslash (/) in your website URL. For example: tidewaterstudio.co/services or tidewaterstudio.co/contact — the ‘services’ and ‘contact’ would be your slug.
When you duplicate or create new pages, these slugs aren’t always updated! This confuses search engines on what your page is about. An example would be if you duplicated your services page to create an individual sales page!
Incorrect Slug: yourwebsitehere.com/services-1-2
Correct Slug: yourwebsitehere.com/salespagetitle </aside>
[ ] Compress those images + add alt text!
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One of the biggest factors in your site loading speed is your image sizes! So many of us download stock photos, brand photos, etc and upload them without thinking. Oftentimes, professional photos have massive file sizes that can slow down your site!
Go to your Media Library (or wherever photos are held on your website platform) and look through each image. Ideally, you want all images in .JPG format and under 500KB.
For the love of all things good, ADD ALT TEXT TO YOUR IMAGES. Not only is this gold for SEO, but it’s also a majorly overlooked compliance factor!
What is alt text? Alt text is a description of each image on your website. This is used for ADA compliance for people with visual impairments, so they can hear what each image is about through a screen reader. This also provides search engines with relevant information for every photo.
Here is an example:
Alt Text: Delia McCowan, copywriter, sitting at a white desk with her laptop. She’s wearing a blue denim long sleeve blouse, has brown hair, with one hand on her keyboard and the other cupping her chin, smiling.
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When it comes to your website, our goal is to take the puzzle that search engines are trying to figure out, and make it as easy as possible for them to know what is relevant and most important.
Your heading tags play an integral role in this! For every website page, search engines are reading your text hierarchy in order of importance, beginning with H1, then H2, H3, and so on, until you get to P (your paragraph/body text).
Every page should only have one H1 tag. If you have more than one on each page, search engines don’t know what the most important/title content is.
There is not a limit to how many H2 or H3s you do, but I recommend basing these off of subheadings, and sections. For example (from my website):
[ ] Do you have those legal pages in?
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Small updates that make a big difference! While a lot of people initially think about keyword strategy with SEO, these small (but vital) updates are important to take care of before diving into long-term strategy.
Your website needs legal pages — a privacy policy and terms + conditions to be exact. There are a few ways to go about this (from least expensive to most):
DIY it — I am not a lawyer, so do this at your own discretion! I will not hate you if you use an AI tool or pull from a template. I would recommend having your preferred tool ask you questions about what information you’ll be gathering/using across the site.
Use a Terms Tool (Recommended) — There are a lot of tools out there that create this for you, and update automatically each year, meaning you don’t have to touch it! You can use tools like **Termly** or Termageddon.
If you are taking a lot of personal information, financial information, or processing large payments through your site, I would recommend having a lawyer look over to make sure that you’re covered! </aside>
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I cannot recommend this enough! You’re probably thinking, ‘can these really be that important’? Yes! You are doing two major things by incorporating this into your website:
You can see a short FAQ example on my website, and a longer FAQ on **my client’s website.**
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Think of me as your brand therapist. Copywriter, brand strategist, Zillennial, and a certified yapper.
Working in agency + in-house settings, and now for business owners just like you, my job is to make SEO and copywriting finally feel understandable, complexity is cancelled!
Enjoy going through your spring cleaning guide, and if you need anything else, I’m just a click away.