Here at Wix we believe that SEO is for everyone. Search engine optimization or SEO can be an integral part of your marketing strategy, helping your website and your business get found online. The natural consequence of being found online is typically more organic traffic from search engines. More traffic can then mean greater potential for conversions and customers.
With this in mind we’ve put together 12 SEO tips that will help get your Wix website crawled, indexed and with some input from you, ranking better, to generate more organic traffic to your site.
01. Try Wix SEO Setup Checklist
IIt’s true, you don’t even need to hire an external service to do your SEO. In order to help you optimize your website and its content to align with SEO best practices, we’ve developed an intuitive and free tool: Wix SEO Setup Checklist which you can easily find it in the dashboard of your Wix account.
How does it work? After answering some basic questions and filling in information relevant to your business, the Setup Checklist provides you with a tailored plan to get started with your SEO. This includes many of the actions you need to take to optimize your content and get ready to rank on search engines, including Google and Bing.
“For the Wix users, this [Wix SEO Setup Checklist] is a pretty cool experience because they can see their page in the search results immediately after they have created it. There is no waiting, there is no wondering, ‘Am I on search or not?’ Within seconds, they’re on Google.” said Mariya Moeva.
02. Use long-tail keywords
Here we’re referring to keywords that contain more terms than average. Okay, let’s rewind. First, what are keywords? These words or phrases are what a searcher would type into a search box to find you, or a business like yours online. For example, if you’re the proud owner of a cupcake shop, you would want a searcher to enter the keyword ‘best cupcakes’ and find your website. However, this may be too difficult a keyword to rank for as these shorter keywords generate millions of results, making them much more competitive. If you optimize for short keywords, you’re choosing to take on all of that competition, which might result in your website getting lost in the Loch Ness of Google’s results.
This is why you need to ‘go long’. Try finding more precise keywords by adding your specialty and/or location. Looking at our cupcake example, you could go for gluten-free and vegan cupcakes in Brooklyn. The more targeted your keyword, the better as you’ll be able to attract the right audience and increase the chances of searchers clicking on your website from search results. Not sure how to choose your words? Check out this post on how to find the best keywords for your website.
03. Choose the right domain
If you haven’t already got yourself a personalized domain, there’s no time like the present. With Wix, you can easily get your free domain name and connect it to your website. Not only is it an SEO best practice, it will give your business the professional look it needs to compete online.
However, owning a domain isn’t enough, you’ve got to choose the right one. How to go about it? There are three things to keep in mind when taking the domain plunge. First, you want to keep it as short and catchy as possible to make the potential visitors want to click when seeing your name. Second, your business name or area of expertise should be included, so that visitors can easily understand what you do. Lastly, you can include your main keyword in your domain if it’s relevant for potential customers. But if you can’t, don’t worry—Google has said there’s no ranking benefit to this practice. Not sure how to commit? Have a look at this article for more expert SEO tips on choosing the right domain.
04. Write unique titles & descriptions
Filling in your metadata, i.e. your titles and descriptions, should be in your SEO 101 crash course. But if you want to get your optimization right, you need to write unique titles and descriptions not only for your homepage but for each one of your website’s sections and pages. Why is that? Using the same metadata may seem like your website contains duplicate content. This may confuse search engines, as they won’t know which of your pages to point searchers to
With Wix SEO you can customize your meta titles and descriptions, enabling you to optimize the basics just the way you want for each page. Have a large site with too many pages to personalize when it comes to metadata? With Wix SEO you can also automate metadata at both the page and subfolder level.
05. Make it mobile friendly
If you want to succeed in the online jungle, having a mobile-friendly site is non-negotiable. When you create a website with Wix you get an Editor which is able to update your website’s content for mobile.
06. Submit a sitemap
A sitemap is, in simple terms, a plan of your website. It shows how your different pages are connected to one another. Why do you need it? It’s useful to send a sitemap to search engines so that they can crawl your website more easily and quickly, which can improve your overall SEO. Basically, it’s just like when you check out a map before visiting a new city. One way to submit your sitemap is via Google Search Console. The process is a tiny bit technical, but worry not as there is a whole step-by-step guide to help you along the way.
Another, much easier way to submit your sitemap is by using Wix SEO. All you need to do is connect your domain to our Google Search Console integration and in a click, you can easily submit your sitemap, if you’re a premium user. Yes, it’s that easy.
07. Go local SEO
Are you a local business owner? Then, you surely want to attract people in your surrounding area. More times than not, these people will actually be looking for you online (lazy, much?).
This is exactly why you need to improve your local SEO. No need to stress, as we’ve got the top SEO tips to help you boost your foot traffic and get you on the map (literally). The best way to start is by claiming your business on Google My Business, and filling in your profile from head to toe. This way, your business can be found when searching on Google Maps. Plus, you’ll be eligible to earn some prime real estate in Google’s local pack, the boxed result that appears at the top of the results page, which includes a map and a list of 3 businesses.
Another great way is to sign up to as many relevant local directories as you can. Ready to go loco? Read this post for more advice and advanced tips on local SEO.
08. Structure your site
This may seem like a step that is sometimes overlooked, but a good site structure is essential for your SEO. In addition to making it easier for search engine bots to crawl and understand hierarchy, it’s paramount for users to be able to peruse through your site freely. This can seriously help increase the amount of pages potential customers visit and time spent on your website.
Wix website templates automatically provide you with an optimal structure for your website. All templates come with an intuitive menu to make navigation on your site simple and intuitive. Plus, heading tags (these are SEO terms for headings and titles) are all beautifully formatted in a way to give hierarchy to your page so that it looks and feels organized (and stunning). Remember when customizing your menu to include all sections in a clear way so that all of your website content can be easily found (and clicked on). A visitor shouldn’t click more than twice to reach any other page of your website.
09. Describe your images
A website without images is like a musical without the songs. It’s a fact, rich media such as photographs or images, enhance your website’s user experience. And you know what happy users means? That’s right, more business for your website. There is one minor problem though: Google and other search engines can’t see images like we do. This is why you need to add text to help them understand what’s in your photos, graphs and other images. Adding these little textual descriptions, known as alt text, can help your images get found on Google Image Search, which can drive additional traffic to your site. Remember, it’s important that you add unique and descriptive alt text to all of your images. Using Wix, it’s actually really easy to insert alt text for your images. Learn how to do it and become an alt text pro.
10. Write valuable content
If I could offer you only one tip for the future of your website, it would be to focus on content. Your content provides search engines with important ranking signals for your website. And not just any content will work. It’s got to be unique (not copied from anywhere), fresh (updated regularly) and valuable (readers can find it on your website only). Probably the most important factor however is relevant - it must answer questions your potential customer might have. This is content that will have a better chance of ranking for relevant queries. What’s the best way to achieve this? Create a free blog. The Wix Blog has advanced capabilities integrated into the platform, all you need to do is pick up a keyboard and start writing. To make sure your website stays fresh, we’ve compiled a list of 21 content ideas for your website.
11. Get more backlinks
Optimizing your site is already a great start to your online success. But every website needs a little help from Internet friends to get by. What we mean is that, in order to really excel in SEO, you need to get backlinks to your website. Basically, these are links from external sites to your own. Being one of the most powerful ranking signals, this one can be the hardest to achieve. Don’t worry though, we’ve got a blog post for that too. Check this out to discover how to become an outreach pro.
Another way to get your name out there and attract attention from online peeps is social media. And of course, Wix automatically makes your links shareable on social media so you don’t need to worry about your website looking good on Facebook and Twitter. It also gives you complete control when it comes to the image shared with your link on social media. You can easily change it from inside the editor. See how easy it is to do here.
12. Keep optimizing for SEO
And last but equally important: don’t rest on your laurels. SEO is all about continuous efforts to make sure you stay competitive online. This doesn’t mean that you need to redesign your ‘Home Page’ every day. But rather, understanding what works and what doesn’t will help you create even more valuable content. Which means that you should regularly measure your website’s metrics (time on page, number of visitors, from which countries, etc.). This guide explains exactly how to use Google Analytics.
SEO is an ever-evolving industry as algorithms are continuously updated and new research is done on a daily basis. What’s the best way to make sure you’re on top of your SEO game?
Stay alert. To do this, check out our Wix SEO Hub for videos, articles, webinars designed to take you from beginner to pro.