New Website SEO - How to Optimize Your Site in 2020

Hey everyone! It's me, Scott. Your  trusted HostGator website guy!   In this episode of 'Hosted', we'll cover my five  favorite SEO things you can do right now to help   your site get noticed and stick around for some  tips from HostGator's SEO master Alexis Krasinski! Are you feeling desperate to get noticed? Not me!   I'm confident enough in myself to not need to  wear an obnoxious shirt. Well if you are looking   to get your website noticed, here are five easy  things you can do to improve your SEO. Number One!   Perform keyword research. My favorite go-to  advice on optimizing SEO is to amp up your text   with keywords, but did you know that there are tons  of tools out there to help with keyword research?   semrush.com and ahrefs.com are two great examples  that can help you gain insight into what potential   visitors are looking for, or try Google's keyword  planner. Just like your old school Trapper Keeper   day planner, but digital and built into your Google  Ads Console, and really not at all a day planner.   It's free to get started, and will even help  you build very targeted ad campaigns with easy   budgeting tools. Pro-tip, when you're starting out,  short keywords are highly competitive, so instead   find long tail keywords and get specific.  For instance, web hosting would be probably   competitive against a super awesome web hosting  service provider like, I don't know, Hostgator? You probably want something more specific,  like web hosting for guys who need to build   a website to get noticed by girls, or  something like that. Just as an example.   Tried it, doesn't work. Number two! Plan site  architecture. If you're George Costanza,   another way to get noticed is by claiming  you're an architect named Art Vandelay.   Faking you are an architect won't help with  your website's SEO, but planning your site's   architecture will. It is important for your site  to have a logical structure that is easy to follow   for your visitors, promoting longer page visits and  a better user experience. If you're just starting   out, your site will be pretty simple, but some rules  of thumb remain the same. Most sites should have a   pyramid style architecture with your home page  at top and secondary pages, the pages your main   menu will navigate, to directly below. And below  that, any subcategories or individual pages.  

With proper site architecture, you  will become the master of your domain.   Yes, love a good Seinfeld joke, though not at  all what they were referencing in the show.   Side note, if you find this video helpful,  smash that like button. If you have questions   about any of this go ahead and ask me in  the comments. I'll respond to all of them! Number three! Think mobile first. Did you know  that about half of all website visits come from   people on their phones? In fact you're probably  watching this on your phone right now. Yeah I know   you. You're watching on your phone. With so much  traffic coming from mobile, it's super important to   make sure your visitor experience is good on both  mobile and desktop. Make sure it's responsive! Avoid   using flash, and use large buttons that are easy  to tap on for people with clumsy thumbs like me. Number four! Focus on page speed. Here to help speed  this point along please welcome HostGator's SEO   guru Alexis Krasinski! Hey Alexis, how you doing? Hey  Scott! Doing well. So why is page speed so important   for SEO? So page speed has always been important for  SEO, but in 2021 it's going to become an even more   essential component of your SEO strategy. In 2021,  Google is planning on incorporating what they're   calling core web vitals into their algorithm,  meaning your site rankings will be impacted by   your page speed. You can track your CWV scores and  other page speed metrics in Google Search Console,   as well as Page Speed Insights. Both tools created  by Google, so you're saying page speed is important.   What can we do about it? What are your top  three page speed improvement recommendations?   So my top three would definitely be  to remove any unused JavaScript or CSS.   Defer offscreen images so your images  only load when someone scrolls to see them.   Eliminate render-blocking resources, which  basically means to make sure your code files   are in the right order and to minify any extra  code. You got it! So making your code nice and tidy   will keep things fast, and help your SEO. Exactly.  Cool man! Everyone needs an Alexis in their life.   Thanks for stopping by Alexis! Number  five! Optimize on-page elements.  

Search engines are smart, but still not human,  so two things they can't do well are find true   love, and index things like images and animation, so  you should focus on optimizing indexable elements.   This means doing things like writing customized  meta tags, meta titles, and meta descriptions,   making sure your videos and images have  text descriptions and captions with keywords,   and get rid of any flash animations. They're  not indexable, and they don't load on all the   devices anyway. So gross. What year is it 2002? I wonder  if Ross and Rachel will get back together again?   Until search engines learn to index  love, focus on the things they can.   And there you go! Five easy things you can do  right now to improve your SEO. So go do it! Now! N,o   what are you still, what are you still doing here?  The video's over, go home, put your phone down, I'm   gonna go optimize your SEO. Go. I'm gonna go do it  my-. Do you have any favorite, uh, Seinfeld moments?   Look like you put the bomb on. I didn't tell you  put the bomb on! You put the bomb on. It was classic.   He spills the coffee on himself? Yeah, yeah,  yeah, yeah. Really good. Anything Kramer and the lawyer.   I just died. Really yeah, yeah what's the  lawyer's name? Remember? Oh god, Jaaaa-.   If you know, leave it in the comments! There it  is! Also are you the master of your domain?