Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of organically increasing the quantity of traffic to your page and its rank in a search engine's results (e.g., Google, Bing and Yahoo) without paying for Google or Bing advertising services.

Creating effective SEO

You can create effective on-page SEO by using:

• Effective page names (including its Heading 1 and Title tag)
• Tagged headings that broadcast topics clearly
• Hyperlinks that guide a visitor between pages on your website
• Image alt tags
• Page descriptions and metadata
• Keywords that the visitor is looking for in the first 100 words on a page

Try to avoid using special characters (e.g., ?, &, =, +, %, etc.). Using letters, numbers and hyphens are best.

Create useful content

Creating compelling and useful content helps your page gain recognition online. Search engines can recognize if visitors find your content helpful and interesting, and will refer others to a well-written website over a website without quality content.

Fast page load speed

A page's load speed, and whether the website's design is responsive, will affect your SEO. Reducing the size of images and only embedding external applications (e.g., maps, videos, etc.) when appropriate will help to reduce page load speed.

Linking strategy

Linking pages internally and externally will help search engines crawl your website. The more links that point to your website from other reputable organizations, which speak positively about you, will help your website rank higher in search engine results. Ensuring that third-party news websites and social media platforms include links to pages on your website or share your content will significantly impact your SEO.