SEO Hygiene, you say? It’s nothing to be afraid of – just a helping hand from Google that can up your SEO game. SEO hygiene is all about taking purposeful strides to help keep your site running as smooth as silk (before problems arise). Think of SEO hygiene as a means of proactively supporting your site’s goals, including your marketing aspirations.
What’s It All About?
SEO hygiene is pretty much what the name implies – basic hygiene for your SEO. You wouldn’t head to bed without brushing your teeth, and there are certain tasks that you should be just as vigilant about regarding your SEO. Basic SEO hygiene refers to routine check-ins with your site that allow you to set the stage for success. The benefits you can look forward to include:
- Solidifying your site’s authority
- Achieving higher rankings overall
- Fortifying your site’s credibility and trustworthiness
- Generating that revenue
The point is to grow your business, and without solid SEO hygiene, it’s far easier to wobble off course.
What Does It Mean for My Business?
There are a lot of things related to SEO that you have absolutely no control over – and that you may not even understand. That’s to be expected. On the other hand, there are elements of SEO that you totally own, and this is where SEO hygiene comes in. When you are able to drive organic search traffic your way, it increases your relevance, bolsters your brand, and is good for business all around. When you get all hygienic with it, it helps to ensure that you are coming from a solid starting position and that you have a strategy in place – as opposed to heading into an open field with a scattershot approach. Once you’re in a stone SEO-hygiene groove, you’ll be ready to move forward with the confidence that comes from knowing your efforts are fortified by forethought.
Healthy SEO Hygiene: Best Basic Practices
You’ve been doing this online thing a while, which means that you’re aware of the basic basics when it comes to SEO. While basic best practices are already on your radar, it’s important not to let them get lost in the mix. This means paying attention to all of the following and ensuring that they continue to hit their marks:
- Your page titles
- Your targeted keywords
- Your headers and sub headers
- Your meta tags and alt tags
- Your internal and external link building efforts
This is all basic housekeeping, and while it may not be sexy, it remains as important as it ever was.
Healthy SEO Hygiene: Best Higher-Level Practices
There are some higher-level best practices for SEO hygiene that you may not be up to speed on. Heck, you may not know where to even begin with these, but once armed with a bit of background information, you’ll be better positioned to run with it.
May I Assure You
Quality assurance is SEO hygiene 101. When you change up your website, follow-up is paramount. Waiting for a mishap to come to your attention is not the way to go. Quality assurance is the backbone of your SEO hygiene efforts, and having a solid plan in place that incorporates proven procedures and a central database for logging results is your command central.
Clean up that Code
Your code is your site’s infrastructure, and while you don’t have to be a coding expert, you should have a good feel for what your code is up to – especially how it’s holding up from the perspective of your target audience. Making it your practice to regularly shoot your code through search engine inspection tools will help ensure that your code sparkles like your own pearly whites.
Own that Content
Without content, you don’t have a website or online presence, but content has a way of growing exponentially and of getting out of hand in the process. Your content shouldn’t be a hodgepodge of offerings – in fact, this is a great way to start a keyword war within your own site. When it comes to your website’s content, the idea is to unite and conquer, which requires careful oversight that ensures the left hand of your team knows what the right hand is doing (content-wise).
Get Friendly with Your Mobile Design
It’s 2021, and your site’s mobile experience matters – a whole lot. Clunky mobile design does not cut it, and consumers – at this point – have very little patience for techy glitches. Pay attention to how every change and edit you make to your site translates to your mobile space, and take whatever hygienic steps are necessary to keep your online offerings mobile-friendly.
May I Direct Your Attention
Redirects play an important role in your SEO hygiene, but if your redirects are crisscrossing all over the place and competing with one another, it can spell trouble. Every redirect in your repertoire should be thoroughly vetted to help keep your site running like a top – without pesky lag time, site stress, or general mayhem.
Calling All Architects
The architecture of your website is what delivers all your hard work to the people. In other words, there is a lot riding on it, and it needs to be in tiptop shape. You are going for smooth moves that allow super simple navigation, but brand-building cohesion across your platform is also key. As such, keeping things like internal links, general design principles, formatting, and navigation tools in your SEO-hygiene sights is key.
Digital Marketing Experts Can Help You Clean up Your SEO Hygiene
The digital marketing mavens at The Web Guys have the SEO hygiene savvy to help you lay down your best SEO efforts, which includes creating a hygiene routine that supports your goals, adhering to that routine, and evolving right along with it. You have insightful questions; we have answers and bright ideas; and, together, we’re unstoppable. To discuss your marketing with one of our experts, contact us at (317) 805-4933 today.
