SEO For Large Websites
SEO professionals who manage large websites face unique challenges; but, with proper knowledge and strategies in place, these sites can also become great opportunities.
Use schema markup on your pages to help search engines understand the content more clearly, which enables Google Search results with rich features like review stars and decorated listings.
1. Content is king
Content on your website is what Google reads to determine its page ranking, with fresh, relevant information also playing a factor in its algorithm. Therefore, it’s vitally important that you create engaging and original material for your target audience to read; whether this involves writing news stories, breaking an exciting industry report, or compiling comprehensive resources – often the best SEO strategies involve evergreen content that continues providing value over time.
Large websites often include thousands of pages, making SEO implementation challenging. But it’s not impossible – all it takes is having a plan and sticking with it, while being open with your team about what SEO involves and the advantages associated with proper implementation.
One of the main challenges associated with managing large volumes of content lies in finding an efficient means of organizing it all. From an ecommerce site with thousands of product pages to corporate sites with hundreds of articles, keeping everything fresh and SEO optimized can be difficult for large websites with multiple stakeholders and decentralized ownership structures – which further complicate matters when trying to implement best practices for SEO.
Another challenge lies in recognizing and avoiding duplicate content, as Google can penalize websites with duplicated or similar material that appears multiple times on their pages. It is crucial that all your website’s pages feature unique, informative information – you can do this using either canonical pages or the hreflang tag to achieve this aim.
Internal linking is also crucial for large websites. This allows you to spread link equity evenly throughout your domain, as well as use descriptive anchor text when linking back. Google uses contextual clues from anchor texts when understanding which pages belong where on your website.
Avoid microsites as they can hinder your overall SEO efforts, diluting your brand and confusing visitors while disconnecting related content. Plus, their maintenance costs could decrease organic search traffic significantly.
2. Internal linking is key
Internal linking transforms isolated web pages into part of a content infrastructure and improves SEO by redirecting link equity towards relevant pages, and helps search engines better comprehend your website architecture. If you own a furniture store, for instance, internal links should lead visitors further into each category such as dining or bedroom furniture to help search bots better comprehend which categories your pages fall into and therefore return more accurate search queries results.
Your internal links should feature anchor text containing keywords to increase relevancy of linked-to pages, while using multiple instances of identical anchor text may lead to keyword cannibalization (where your own pages compete for the same keywords). For optimal results, use exact-match anchor text when targeting highly relevant search terms and partial-match or contextual anchor text when targeting less competitive terms.
Make sure that all internal links open in a separate tab from their source page to avoid losing customers to search engine results, leading to poor user experiences and negatively affecting ranking potential in search results.
Another key part of internal linking is creating topic clusters on your site. Topic clusters are large pieces of content that cover several related subjects at once and provide links to relevant subtopic pages, providing Google with an easier path through your website and helping rank more keywords that matter in SERPs.
Internal linking doesn’t pass as much link juice as backlinks do, but it still can help boost your website’s authority and help rank better in search engines like Google. But be mindful that only relevant pages should be linked. Linking irrelevant ones could hinder SEO performance – something Google could penalize you for. Therefore, to keep things running smoothly you should conduct an annual review of all internal linking on your site’s pages.
3. On-page optimization is key
Search engines are an essential resource for everyday people, from discovering shoe store locations near them to counting how many steps it takes to climb the Eiffel Tower – so SEO should be an integral component of almost all websites, helping ensure their pages reach the target audiences and boost visibility on SERPs. Unfortunately, with so many moving parts and changes taking place constantly it can be challenging keeping up with SEO best practices.
To achieve on-page optimization, the first step should be identifying what keywords your business targets. Once this step has been taken, each page’s content can then be tailored towards satisfying queries that your target audience uses to locate products or services you provide. Once that information is in hand, use it to craft keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions that help search engines recognize your pages as relevant while also encouraging users to click through to your site.
Alt text (alternative text descriptions) helps search engines locate and index images and media on your page. They are also useful for people using screen readers to navigate the web. Furthermore, using unique URLs for different content on your website is crucial for proper SEO as this prevents duplicate content being indexed and may improve SEO rankings overall.
Another key part of on-page optimization is making sure your pages are mobile-optimized – especially e-commerce sites, which need to be accessible across both desktop and mobile devices. Also avoid distracting advertisements or interstitial pages which could detract from visitor experience and cause them frustration.
Finally, it’s crucial that your website loads quickly. This is an integral component of SEO as surveys demonstrate most consumers do not want to wait long for pages to load; if yours does so too slowly you risk losing customers and ranking lower in search results – therefore testing its speed regularly to identify areas for improvement is key.
4. Keyword research is key
But how can you choose the appropriate keywords that will rank higher in search engine results pages, leading to more traffic and business? Keyword research provides the solution. By discovering words, queries, and phrases users are searching on Google for, keyword research allows you to tailor content directly towards meeting audience needs while understanding which competitors rank for these same terms – information which can inform your SEO strategy moving forward.
Before going online, begin by reviewing your website and writing down keywords that come to mind. After this step, visit Google and review the results – what websites offer up in return for these keywords will give a good indication of competitors you will face when competing against them. Similarweb is another useful tool to discover more keyword ideas and synonyms; just be sure to double-check all results against your own site!
Once you’ve identified keywords, it’s important to determine their intent in order to craft effective content for them. For instance, when someone searches “what is ice cream?,” that could indicate they’re at an early buying stage in their customer journey and searching for stores and brands selling ice cream – an actionable clue as search intent that allows you to craft meaningful articles tailored toward meeting audience needs.
At this stage, it’s essential to evaluate the monthly search volume (MSV) of each keyword, in order to ascertain which are worth your time and effort. You should target low- to mid-tier keywords with high MSV that also are pertinent to your industry – this way you’ll know which ones deserve your focus and attention. It is also essential to keep testing and evaluating efforts and progress; setting meetings so that everyone involved remains on the same page can help, especially when working on larger websites.
