The MatrixWhen’s the last time you assessed your current SEO strategy? Do you know why or why not your site lacks relevancy to many of the keywords you think your customers are searching for? Have you considered doing some onsite optimization or cleaning up some of the standard template content a platform provider offers?

Yes? No? Don’t be nervous, it’s not the Matrix…

Between keeping up with everyday responsibilities and other things in life like watching my extensive collection of Keanu Reeves DVD’s (for example), it’s sometimes hard to find the time to make big changes to a website.

Here are a few quick and easy things you can do to ensure some SEO success.

Clean Up Your Content

Are you writing content for the user? You should be. Are you stuffing every keyword you can think of in one paragraph to make sure search engines find your content? You shouldn’t be. Keep your content clean and focused. Develop a strategy around three or four keywords and write 300-500 words.

Here are some examples of good content highly-targeted content:

Targeting searchers looking for a solid, dependable 4 wheel drive vehicle? Write 300-500 words about the Jeep Wrangler, its 4×4 capabilities, reliability in the snow and quality of the model.

Maybe you’re a company that specializes in motorcycle upgrades. Write 500 words about how your business has been rebuilding and upgrading the Harley 883 Sportster to a 1200 for the past twenty years.

An instrument repair shop? Write a quick blog about a popular amp that people own or search for (Marshall JCM 900 for example) and how simple it is to change out the tubes. These types of businesses might not be relevant to yours, but I think you get my point. Just remember to write for the user, not for the search engine.

Link With Phrases People Are Searching For

For the past few months Google and other search engines have been making changes to their algorithms to focus on stronger, natural linking within content. Does the content on your site use anchor text (the underlined link text) that contains keywords people might be searching with?

To keep with the businesses already mentioned, take a look at the content on your instrument repair website. Are you linking with terms like “Marshall JCM 900, 800, JMP, Plexi, MG100,” or are you linking with “Marshall JCM 900 repair”? See the difference?

Does the content on your motorcycle site link with text like “Harley Sportster, Dyna, Roadster, Roadking, V-Rod upgrades” or does it link with something more focused and searchable like “Harley Sportster engine upgrades”?

Keep it clean, keep it natural looking and send it to a page built out for that link text, your keyword phrase.

Take Advantage of Google’s Free Tools

Google offers a few tools both onsite and offsite that you should be taking advantage of. The two onsite tools every website should have are Analytics and Webmaster tools. You have probably already my blog on why you should have Analytics (if not you can find it here). Analytics allows you to track visitors, time spent on site, how pages are performing, keywords and so much more. Do yourself a favor and read that blog!

Webmaster Tools is also free and easy to use. Webmaster Tools shows issues like duplicate content, poor links, sitemap issues, etc. This tool can also give you some insight to how well your website performs for certain keywords and can give you some ideas on keywords you can set as goals for a future strategy.

Depending on your platform, you may need your webmaster to install these codes for you, but the process is extremely simple and the benefits of both are extremely high. This should be the first thing you do for any site.

So there you have it, three simple things you can do to make sure your website’s SEO strategy is up to date and doesn’t offer search engines, or users, a poor experience.