How to Optimise Your Website: SEO Tips from WebGator

Want to know how to optimise your website? These things are pretty easy to do and we’re sure you’ll be able to manage them. Remember that this is a basic guide for people who don’t know much about web design or SEO. It will be harder to optimise your website if it isn’t hosted on cPanel or if it isn’t a WordPress site, in which case some of these options won’t be possible for you.

Step 1: Check Your Website Speed

Go to a free speed-testing tool like Pingdom or GTmetrix, enter your website URL, and choose the test location closest to you. Run the test. The reason we do this first is to record the current site speed so we can measure improvement after making changes. Take a screenshot of the results or record them so you have a baseline.

Step 2: Check Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool

Go to Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and enter your website URL. Take a screenshot of the mobile and desktop scores. Although it’s owned by Google, it isn’t the only tool you should rely on for analysis, but it gives a good overall picture of speed and usability and lets you track improvement. Some issues just can’t be fixed. Aim for a strong desktop score; mobile is usually lower.

When running this tool you’ll probably see a suggestion to ‘reduce server response time’. This is usually a problem with your host, so we recommend choosing a quality website host. We’ve tried a lot of different hosting companies over the years — get in touch with us to find out which would be best for your needs.

Now that we have your website’s current performance data, we can start to identify areas for improvement and work out how to optimise your website.

Step 3: Optimise Images

First, if your site is on a host that uses cPanel, there is usually a tool called ‘Optimize Website’. Log in to cPanel (usually yourwebsite.com/cpanel) using the username and password your hosting company gave you. Search inside cPanel for ‘Optimize Website’, choose ‘Compress All Content’, then update the settings. Next, go to your website and download all the images on your main landing pages. For most local business websites, this will just be the homepage. You can download the images by hovering over each one, right-clicking, and choosing ‘Save As’. Create a new folder on your computer to save them.

After that, go to an image-compression tool like TinyPNG or Compress JPEG. Drag and drop all your images in and wait for them to be processed, then download the whole batch and save them to your computer.

Once the images are compressed, check each file name and make sure it includes a relevant keyword. For example, if the file name is image101.jpg, change it to something like yourbusinessname-keyword.jpg. Don’t use spaces or underscores in the file name — you can use dashes instead.

Upload your optimised images to your website, replacing the old ones. Also make sure each image has descriptive ‘alt’ text, preferably with your keyword in it. If you need help with this, just let us know.

Step 4: Install a Caching Plugin

If you’re using WordPress, you can install a caching plugin. There are good free options, but if you’re totally new to this we recommend WP Rocket. It’s a paid plugin, but well worth it.

Step 5: Get Your Header Tags Sorted

Search engines give a lot of value to header tags. Your main keyword(s) should be in your H1 tag. Your H2 should act as a sub-heading that also contains your main keyword or a related keyword phrase. H3 tags are great for other important keywords you want to rank for — you can have many H3 tags on a page if you’re going after several keyword terms. If you don’t know how to do this, let us know and we’ll help you out.

Step 6: Optimise Your Website Title and Description

The title and description of your website are what display in the search engines. If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin like Rank Math or Yoast SEO. You set the title and description of your homepage by editing the homepage itself — you’ll see the SEO box below the content area. Your title should contain your main keyword. For example, if you’re trying to rank for ‘Web Design Brisbane’, you could use a title like ‘WebGator Web Design Brisbane – Website Designers’.

Below the title you’ll see the description area. Use this for the sales copy of your page. Don’t bother stuffing keywords here, as it doesn’t carry much ranking weight. Instead, use this space to sell to your customers so that when they see your site listed in the search engines, they’ll want to click. The SEO plugin will tell you if you exceed the maximum number of acceptable characters.

If you’ve already installed a caching plugin, you’ll have to clear the cache after making changes before they appear.

Step 7: Recheck Your Site Using the Tools in Step 1

If there’s been some improvement in speed and performance, that’s fantastic. If there’s been no change, maybe your web designer already did a good job of getting your site optimised.

Remember, this is a basic guide and there are lots of other things an SEO will do to optimise a website. But if you’re on a tight budget or a DIY fan, you should benefit from following these steps. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch.