Complete Homepage SEO Guide | BKA Content – Technologist
Did you lovingly craft what you thought was the perfect homepage for your website, but it isn’t getting the traffic you hoped for? Did you put up a basic site because everyone said you had to, even though nobody ever visits?
If this sounds like you, your homepage SEO (search engine optimization) could be to blame. About 70% of all website traffic starts in a search engine. If your page isn’t ranking in the top results, you aren’t getting the traffic you need. Here, we will tell you how to boost your rankings.
What Is Homepage SEO?
Search engine optimization involves tweaking your online content to give it the best chance of reaching the top of the search results. SEO for your homepage specifically focuses on your website’s main landing page.
How Important Is the Homepage for SEO?
Your homepage does two important things for SEO. First, it ranks for relevant keywords, helping potential customers find your site. Second, it helps the other pages rank better by establishing your site as an authority on relevant topics that potential customers are searching for.
How Do You Optimize Your Homepage for SEO?
Imagine if you could load your homepage into your favorite content creation tool, press the “optimize for SEO” button, and forget about it. Homepage SEO isn’t quite that easy; however, you can improve your results.
Perform a Website Audit
You can’t get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you are. A website audit helps you figure out where you are in your SEO journey by thoroughly examining how well your site is currently optimized for search engines. There are several ways to perform an audit.
You can manually check all the various aspects of your website, but this method is time-consuming, particularly if you have a lot of content. You can also use one of a variety of free or paid SEO tools.
Even with a good tool, it takes time to acquire the expertise necessary to evaluate the results of your audit and formulate an action plan. Save yourself the trouble by talking to the experts at BKA Content. We provide a free site content audit as part of our SEO consultation service.
Identify Your Target Keyword
Your homepage must tell visitors and search engines exactly what your business is about. One way to do this is to focus your homepage SEO on a target keyword or phrase.
Create a list of all the keywords that best describe your products, services, and value proposition. For example, if you sell organic apples, your keyword list might include words like:
- Apple
- Fresh
- Organic
- Healthy
- Delicious
Once you have your list, look at what your competitors are doing. Read their websites and add the words they use to describe their products to your list.
Analyze the words on your list to determine how many people are searching for them and what kind of content they find. You should probably use a free or paid tool to help with this step or consult with an SEO expert.
Use the results of this analysis to select the keyword or phrase that strikes the best balance between accurately describing your products and services and matching the words potential customers are searching for when looking for those products and services. Build your homepage content around this target keyword.
Create Your Homepage Content
The bulk of the content on your homepage is the words, images, and videos you use to describe your products, services, and business to potential customers. Build your content around what customers need to know about your business and what makes you unique.
Your content should match the user’s search intent. If your content doesn’t naturally match what someone would expect when searching for your target keyword, rethink your keyword.
Search for your target keyword and examine the types of content the top-ranking pages include. Be sure you don’t copy this exactly, but use it to inspire your content.
Remember to mention your brand in your content. This will help people searching for information about your company find their way to your page.
Incorporate relevant keywords into your content, but do it naturally. If you have to force the keywords in, consider choosing different keywords for your homepage SEO.
Include a mix of text, images, and video content. Build trust and authority by incorporating customer testimonials, case studies, and other social proof.
Give customers everything they need to know on your homepage. Don’t assume they will dig deeper into your website to find out more.