If you want to boost SEO fast, you’re in the right place.
Today, I’ll share seven of my favorite SEO “quick wins.”
Each takes less than 30 minutes but delivers outsized results.
Let’s go!
Editor’s note: This article comes from years of experience helping clients sell more using high-converting content. If you’re interested in more sales at your eCommerce store, send us a message.
1. Submit your site to Google Search Console
The chart below represents a client’s #1–#3 Google rankings. The Google Search Console submission happened in late July:
Pretty impressive—especially for something you can do in (literally) three clicks.
Click one: Go to Google Search Console. (If you haven’t connected it to your site, it’s a fast and easy process.)
Click two: Paste your website in the box that says “Inspect any URL.”
Click three: Hit enter.
Within a few days, Google will review your site, which could very well lead to results like those above.
2. Optimize your images
Not so long ago, you had to optimize images manually. It took forever.
Not anymore.
There are plenty of great plugins that work well. Look for a plugin or collection of plugins that do the following:
- Automatically shrink images. Your site shouldn’t load a high-res image when a low-res will work. Loading a full-size image for a gallery thumbnail, for example, will only slow down your site.
- Lazy load images. This feature will delay loading any images further down a page until a user scrolls to them. It makes your page load lightning fast.
- Content delivery network (CDN). Physically storing files on a server closer to the user will speed up transit time. A user in Texas who can pull images from a server in Texas will have a better experience than if they must use a server in Europe, for example.
If you’re on WooCommerce (WordPress), Optimole is a good choice—it’s the plugin we use on this site.
There are also options for Shopify, Magento, and more.
3. Redirect to HTTPS
This tip is a bit technical but worth the effort.
There are two kinds of protocols for websites: HTTP and HTTPS. HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) came first in 1991. HTTPS followed a few years later, with the “S” standing for “Secure.”
Today, all sites should use HTTPS.
And it will help you with SEO.
The problem is your site probably has accidental links to insecure HTTP pages. You should edit your .htaccess file (kind of like a routing directory for your website) to change any HTTP link to an HTTPS link automatically.
(And if the above was complete gibberish, share it with a developer. Any good technical web developer will understand what to do.)
4. Reduce redirects
While we’re on the subject, there’s another common problem with .htaccess files: too many redirects.
Let’s say your site is https://www.mystore.com.
If a user types in mystore.com, the .htaccess file first redirects to http://www.mystore.com. But then that’s an unsecured HTTP connection, so then it redirects to https://www.mystore.com.
These two redirects slow your site speed down and hurt SEO placement. The solution is simple—change your .htaccess page to send mystore.com to https://www.mystore.com directly.
Problem solved.
5. Apply 301 redirects (if applicable)
This only applies if you’ve changed your store website URL, for example, from mystore.com to mynewstore.com.
But it’s worth mentioning.
If other sites link to your old eCommerce site, you need to create a 301 redirect from your old site to your new site. The number is a code for bots that means “this site has permanently moved, update your databases accordingly.”
A 301 redirect will transfer SEO advantages from one site to another.
Plus, anyone who goes to your old site will find your new one automatically.
Want to see an eCommerce 301 redirect in action? Head over to browse.com. The site owner changed the main URL a few years back.
6. Link to category pages in your menu
You probably have more backlinks to your homepage than anything else.
You can boost important category pages’ strength and search result performance by linking to them directly in the menu.
I’ve written more about why this works (and other similar strategies) in my piece on ranking better with internal linking.
7. Disable plugins you’re not using
Plugins are a mixed blessing.
On the one hand, they can make complex site edits fast and easy—like creating a sitemap or optimizing images, as mentioned above.
But they also bloat your site behind the scenes, even if you’re not using them.
Look through the list of plugins on your site and remove anything you’re not using.
How to keep up your site’s peak performance
These tips are a great way to see fast results.
But if you want to keep your site performing at its best, you’ll need to keep an eye on these and dozens of other little issues.
There’s nothing wrong with doing it yourself—but it can take time. If you’re looking for an experienced partner to help, talk to us.