Food for Search Engines

While search engine optimization metrics change every day, your company’s need for them does not. Even if you don’t have someone on staff dedicated to maintaining SEO, there are some simple items to pay attention to as a start. Here are some “must do’s” to get the ball rolling on your SEO rankings:

Getting started

• On-page SEO. If you don’t have time to monitor the website every day, make sure your content is accurate. This means ensuring the website contains title tags and zero errors or broken links.
• Google Webmasters. Use this tool for alerts such as messages from the site being tagged as spam, where broken links are located, and other negative metrics about the website.
• Google Analytics. It’s free and offers metrics that can help shape how the website is run and where to focus.

The next level

• Newest in SEO. Adding microdata to websites is a crucial way to give search engines the information they need so they can put the product on their pages. Microdata, for example, could consist of mentioning different food items on a menu, how much they cost, etc. Voice searches now bring a conversational style search that needs consideration.
• Bad practices. Take steps to avoid coming off as spammy. This means having all caps in titles, repeating key words too much and not having relevant links. These are tricks companies used to do when SEO first came around, but they no longer work.
• Fresh content. Consider this the “food” for search engines. They always want something new on their plate. Recently produced content improves rankings because it shows the engines there are different things for the consumer to see.