If you have noticed that there has been a decrease in traffic to your engineering website, it’s important that you take action fast. Getting as much traffic as possible to your page is important, however, knowing which strategy to take can prove costly in the long run.
SEO (search engine optimization) is used to boost your website’s search engine ranking result, meaning that your customers and clients can seek out your services within an instant. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some handy SEO tips that can boost your engineering website’s ranking.
Use Relevant Keywords
Incorporating relevant keywords into your content is key to boosting traffic to your engineering website. It’s important that you select phrases and words that users are likely to type into Google, helping to increase the chances of them clicking on your page. If you aren’t sure how to tackle keyword research, there are three strategies that you can take, which are:
- Reviewing analytics to detect keywords that are already directing traffic to your page
- Using keyword research software like Keyword Planner by Google, which can help you find search terms that generate decent monthly searches
- Research your competitor’s top-ranking pages to figure out which keywords need to be placed where
Make sure that you choose long-tail keywords as part of your strategy, which will bring in the target audience that you want to your engineering website.
Use Onsite SEO
It’s important that you take all onsite SEO factors into account for your engineering website, such as the page speed of your website, as well as resolving any technical problems that can have a major influence on how high up you rank in search engine results. If you optimize the user experience for your visitors, you’re far more likely to convert them into loyal followers, which will increase your ranking.
Make sure that any keywords you use appear naturally within your content. Keywords can be slotted in just about anywhere, such as the page title, sub-headings, as well as in the introduction and conclusion of your content.
Correct Use of Meta Data
Meta tags are a fundamental component of SEO. Meta tags act as the summary for your page content, giving visitors a better understanding of what to expect when they click through to your website. If you want a better click-through rate, it’s important that your meta title and descriptions are relevant to your page.
Good Use of Images
Using image optimization can be another great way to boost traffic to your engineering website, as well as making your blog posts and pages look more eye-catching and appealing to look at. There are several ways that you can optimize your images for SEO, such as:
- Image file name – make sure to include your keywords in the name of your images, as well as avoid default names
- ALT tag – Known as ‘alternative’, the ALT tag of your images will tell the search engine that an image is present. The ALT tag will be presented when an image can’t be shown or if it’s taking too long to load
- Image size – Following Google’s Panda update, the size of the images on your page is more important than ever, with the loading time being an important factor when regarding how fast your page loads
Link Building
Link building is another important component of SEO that you need to know about to help boost traffic to your engineering page. There are two routes that you can go down when it comes to linking internal content and using external sources, which are:
- Content interlinking
- Gaining backlinks
Content interlinking is used to link related blog posts and pages within your website. The primary purpose of interlinking is to persuade your viewers to spend more time on your page, which will help rank your website higher and boost traffic. Also, make sure that you focus primarily on quality over quantity, as it’s not about how many links you have that is crucial, but more so about how you structure your content. You will want to make navigation as easy as possible so your audience can read through your page with ease.
Another way to boost traffic to your page is by gaining backlinks from other websites. If your content is relevant, engaging, and well written, you have more chance of getting linked by accredited associations that can help your page stand out from the crowd. When building links to your page, make sure that you keep them relevant, so as you are an engineering company, you should seek out websites that revolve around engineering too. A little help can go a long way, so building trust among other website owners can make all the difference and secure more visitors to your page.
Update Your Website Frequently
Websites that have dynamic content have a much higher chance of ranking higher in search engine results over those with static content, which is why popular directories and blogs like Wikipedia perform well on search engines, as they’re constantly being updated with fresh content. It’s important to never take your eye off the ball, otherwise, you may lose steam and slip further down the rankings. Being consistent with your engineering website is key to building traffic and a customer base.
Build Momentum with Social Signals
Whether you love it or loathe it, social media is here to stay. With users from across the globe logging into platforms like Facebook each day, to help boost traffic to your engineering website, it’s important that you make your presence known on social media. There are various social signals that you can use to help draw consumers to your page, such as:
- Creating informative content that is share-worthy across social media platforms
- Adding share buttons to your posts
- Encouraging people to share your content
- Hosting a social media content to increase shares
- Mention and link your website on your social media channels
When seeking out products and services, many users tend to head to social media platforms first, so it’s important that you create a business page on Facebook that has a direct link to your engineering website. Make sure that you stay consistent with your content, both on social media and your website.
To get a better understanding of the marketing side of the business, there is the option to complete an online MBA designed for engineers, which can teach you marketing management, giving you the key skills you need to succeed in running an engineering website. Visiting https://online.kettering.edu/programs/masters/masters-business-administration-online can give you more information.
Pay Close Attention to Grammar and Spelling
For readers to find and stay interested in your engineering website, you’re going to need to make sure that your content is of excellent quality, which means faultless spelling. While it’s true that many people misspell words when typing into search engines, excessive misspellings, and bad grammar can tarnish your reputation for all the wrong reasons, which will have a knock-on effect on your website’s ranking.
Write for Humans First
More and more content creators and bloggers are reverting back to the old methods of SEO, where they use as many keywords as possible to drive search results while forgetting about the real qualities that valuable and engaging content can bring. It’s important that you create content that is readable and relevant, rather than primarily focusing on having your engineering website place higher in search engine results. There’s no point in filling your page with dozens of keywords if the readers aren’t going to stick around.
Use Web Analytics
It’s important that you use specialist software to keep track of what is working and what needs changing to your engineering website. There are key benefits that come with using tools like Google Analytics, such as:
- Knowing exactly what your audience is looking for
- Seeing where you are losing customers
- Gauging the success of other marketing activities
- Tracking where your traffic is coming from
- Seeing what time and day your website is the most popular
The more understanding you have of those visiting your page, the better chance you have of building traffic to your website. Getting to understand who your target demographic is will mean you can make changes that will benefit your page in the long run.
Use Meaningful and Readable URLs
If your audience can’t understand or read your URL, you may find search engines are just as confused too. When it comes to structuring URLs, there are key points that you can take on board, such as:
- Using a single domain & subdomain
- Avoid using dynamic parameters
- Match URLs to titles (when it makes sense)
- Avoid using stop words
- Remove or control punctuation characters
If you create a URL that is memorable and easy to read for the user, they are far more likely to click on your page and read your content.
Whether you’ve recently created your engineering website, or there hasn’t been much traction to your page in a while, using the SEO tips listed above can help bring your page back to the forefront, getting you the traffic that you envisaged. If you aren’t the most tech-savvy, getting to grips with SEO can be a daunting task, however, as long as you use relevant keywords and do research into competitors, you should begin to see an influx of traffic.
