12 Ways that Clarity is the Heart of SEO

1)   Before you ever begin to “SEO” your site, you will need a crystal clear business plan and set of business goals. While search engine optimization can help your site gain visibility and traffic, it can’t create a business for you.

2)   Ensure that your site has logical structure and navigation paths. This makes it easier for prospects and customers to find what they need – and earns you thumbs up from Google.

3)   Make sure that you use the most relevant terms and structure for your URLs.

4)   Place right-sized content on the right pages. For example, if you sell widgets, gidgets and gadgets:

1. Your home page should include high-level content about all three products
2. Individual category pages should provide high-level content about that particular category of products; for example, your widget category page should provide high-level content about that type of product and link to gidgets and gadgets category pages (each of which also has relevant high-level content and logical internal links)
3. Individual widget pages should describe what’s unique about a particular widget and make it easy for prospects to find other widgets that they might like as much or better; likewise for each individual gidget and gadget product page

5)   Content should contain keywords used by prospects. Yes, this attracts targeted search engine traffic, which is great – but, more importantly, you’re speaking in the language of the people that you want to communicate with and please.

6)   Highlight your products and services in the best way possible while still being 100% truthful. In other words, belief-proof your content.

7)   In most instances, avoid jargon. Jargon is typically so vague that it adds nothing to a conversation and can confuse prospects. (Here is one exception to that rule.)

8)   Use A/B or multivariate testing to make sure that you’re providing the best conversion pathways; in other words, clear away conversion roadblocks.

9)   Set up appropriate KPIs in your analytics program so that you can clearly see what strategies are working for your site – and which ones aren’t.

10)               Offer multiple methods for prospects to contact you so that you can answer their questions and clear up any confusion or misconceptions.

11)               Craft succinct targeted title tags.

12)               Create compelling and clickable meta description tags.

How else is clarity the heart of SEO? Leave a comment below.