Website Optimisation Strategies for Service Providers

Content Marketing

Jun 30

Written By Emily

7 crazy effective website optimisation tips

When you start a new online business, it can feel like you’re shouting into the void, and no one can hear you.

You’re already up against stiff competition from established brands, so how do you stand out and attract the attention of your ideal clients?

In this post, you’ll discover the best website optimization strategies for showing up in Google searches and boosting website traffic in as little as three months.

Why is Website Optimization Important?

In a perfect world, you’d create a new website, post some blog posts, and watch the traffic steadily flock to your site.

But in a seriously crowded online market, that’s not how it works.

Website optimization helps to get your content in front of your ideal audience. If you’re not sure optimising your website is worth the time, here are some benefits you’ll get:

Fast traffic growth: The right optimisation strategies will help you build your website traffic much faster.
Higher quality leads: Optimising your content for your ideal audience means you’ll get more qualified leads.
Boost brand awareness: No matter how new your business is, optimizing your website correctly will help get your brand name out there.

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Easy Website Optimization Strategies for New Business Owners

These are the strategies I wish someone had told me when I first launched my business, Web Copy Collective. Go through this list to help optimize your site for traffic and conversions.

1. Index with Google

If your website isn’t indexed by Google, none of your pages will rank in searches. So, start by going to Google Search Console and submitting your website as a new property.

You can also submit your site map in the console to help Google crawl your entire website. You’ll find your site map with the following URL:

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml (switch out the .com for whichever domain type you use).

It can take a few days for your site to index, so keep checking back. If Google runs into issues, you’ll get a list of errors you should fix to get your site indexed.

2. Simplify Your Navigation

Your top-level navigation is the menu at the top of your website. It usually has Home, About Us, Contact, Blog, and your Service/Product pages.

This navigation needs to be simple, concise, and easy to use. Too many links will confuse your visitors and harm your blog SEO.

If you have a lot of pages you want to include, use drop-down menus to keep your main navigation as simple and clutter-free as possible.

Website optimization is all about simplifying to improve user experience and SEO, and this is an easy way to get started.

3. Make Your Footer Searchable

Your footer content should have seven essential elements to help boost website optimization:

Top-level navigation (that’s your main menu repeated)
A search bar
Links to your policy and legal pages
Your logo and copyright notice
Social icons
A sign-up to your newsletter
A clear contact button

Since your footer appears on every page, it’s a great place to include important information that clients can find no matter how deep into your website copy they go.

4. Build an Internal Link Structure

Google uses your internal links to crawl your website and figure out what it’s all about. The more internal links you have, the easier it is for your site to show up in specific searches.

However, you need to be strategic with your links when working on your website optimiztion.

The anchor text you hyperlink needs to clearly describe the page it’s pointing to.

For example, if you have a service page called “social media marketing,” all the links pointing to it need to be keywords associated with that term (e.g., social media services, social media manager, etc.).

Google uses the anchor text to assess the page's content, so weak links like “my services” or “service page” won’t help boost your SEO.

Top tip: If you want to quickly add several new links to a page, go to Google and type in this string using the keyword of the page you’re targeting:

site:yourdomain.com “keyword”

It will bring up every page on your website with that keyword. Then, you just need to find the corresponding page in your site manager and turn the keyword into a link.

Do this for enough keywords, and you’ll quickly build a well-optimized internal linking structure.

5. Craft a Keyword Strategy

Each page of your website should be optimized for a specific keyword. But as a new business owner, you’ll struggle to rank for high-competition keywords.

For better website optimization, target low-difficulty keywords with less traffic and then slowly work your way up to more competitive keywords as your site grows.

My favorite tool for finding strategic keywords is Uber Suggest (free and paid versions available). When you type in a keyword idea, you get a list of keyword suggestions, including the search difficulty and volume.

Aim for keywords with a search difficulty (SD) under 40 for your best chance of ranking.

6. Publish Content-Rich Blogs

service provider working on website optimisation

When you launch a new business website, you should have at least ten blog posts already uploaded. This gives your visitors a chance to get to know you and build trust in your brand.

However, to get the best results from website optimization, you should post fresh content at least 2-3 times a week.

Here’s a quick checklist to help you create content-rich, highly-optimized blogs:

Aim for a minimum of 1000 words.
Target a specific, low-competition keyword.
Answer specific questions and provide detailed solutions for your audience.
Add the keyword to your H1 title, H2 title, ALT tags, URL slug, meta description, and body content.
Include professional graphics and illustrations.
Use short paragraphs and sentences.
Add bullet lists and plenty of sections to make the post scannable.

When you first get started with content marketing, it will feel like no one is looking at your posts, but stay consistent. It can take Google a while to index new content on a new website, but you’ll soon start seeing boosts in traffic.

7. Build Backlinks

One of the most effective website SEO optimization strategies is to get backlinks from high-authority websites.

Backlinks tell Google that your website is trusted and an authority in your niche, which means you’re significantly more likely to show up in searches.

But how do you get backlinks as a brand-new website?

Sign up for high-quality business directories (use Moz’s free domain checker to ensure the directory has a good domain score before joining).
Look for guest post opportunities in your niche. You’ll get a link back to your website in the author bio.

Website Optimization: Takeaways

The most essential strategy for new business owners looking to optimise their websites is consistency.

You’ll feel like all of your efforts aren’t making a difference in the first month or two, but if you follow the strategies in this guide, you’ll begin seeing tangible increases in traffic, rankings, and conversions in as little as three months.

Head to the next blog to find out if your site needs a website copy review (spoiler alert: it does!)