Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Websites built in SiteCritter tend to rank high on Google and other search engines. Ranking depends on a variety of factors including your website content and utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
To access the SEO settings for your site, go to the pages dropdown at the top right of the builder and click "edit"
- Title: This is what displays in the tab when your site is opened and also displays on search results and social media. You will want to change this from the default "home" to something that applies to your site. Typically the name of your site or business.
- Description: This should be a brief description of your website and the services or products you offer. This will show in search results and when your website is linked on social media. It can help with click-through.
- Keywords: These do not show in any search results or social media. But they help the search engine in the background. You can put a list of relevant keywords that will help search engines bring your site up more often and higher in search results. Remember no human will see these, they are just there to help the search engine "bots".
- Image: This will typically show up when your website is linked on social media or messaging apps.
- User friendly URL: This gives your page an "alias" url that is more user-friendly. It can be helpful if pages are typically given numerical URLs or random character URLs. This will not work for "default" or your site's "homepage" but will work on other individual pages.
You can preview what your SEO changes will look like in search results, browser, and social media.
Best Practices:
- Make sure your site is mobile-friendly. Google uses mobile-first indexing. SiteCritter generally does this by default, but make sure you are checking what your site looks like in all screen sizes.
- Make sure your site is secured: your website should show HTTPS in the URL. If it does not, go to your control panel in SiteCritter to apply a security license.
- Use headers on your website, H1, H2, H3, etc. The text in your headers should be relevant to the page content and help the search engine "bots" crawl your site faster. It also improves readability for the user.
- Navigation: Make sure your website has a good menu that makes navigation easy for users.
- Image optimization: Give your images descriptive file names and utilize alt text. You can edit alt text by selecting an image in the builder and typing in the "alt text" field on the right toolbar.
- Ensure your website has quality content that is valuable to the user. Keep your intended audience in mind when making content for your site. Content should be engaging, informative, and relevant.
- Research the keywords for your website. Keywords should be what your desired customer is searching to end up at your website, you want these keywords in your site as much as possible. Google Trends can be a useful tool for research as well as linking Google Search Console to your site.
- Use internal links when possible. Link to other relevant pages on your website. This improves navigation and allows the search engine "bots" to "crawl" your website more effectively.
- Build backlinks. Backlinks are when another website links to your site. There are many ways you can do this depending on your site's focus. If you are a local business, ensure you are listed on Yellow Pages and similar sites. There may be industry-specific listing sites that you can utilize or professional guilds you can join. You can also do guest blogs on other sites or build partnerships. Valuable content and infographics can be another good way to build backlinks.
- Utilize social media as this can attract backlinks and increase traffic. You can also utilize social media to increase engagement by encouraging comments or shares.
- Update your content regularly and do regular audits on your SEO to ensure it is still working for you.