What is Homepage SEO?
SEO for the homepage means the process of optimizing your website’s homepage for search engines like Google. You still have to remember that SEO is, by nature, all about optimizing your pages to rank for relevant keywords that users make a search online for. You would want your homepage to rank well for a few keywords relevant to the success of your business.
That said, your homepage has a greater purpose than being a destination for top keywords. It’s real estate that is so valuable it’s where a visitor is taken to and can start building an understanding as to what your site is about and what it offers them. You should treat it as a strategic element rather than just filling this page with content for the benefit of your keyword ranking, not treat it purely as a landing page for keywords.
Your Homepage Has More Functions
A strategic SEO approach to your homepage is by prioritizing the experience of your visitors and communicating forthrightly the essence of your website. This involves what users can find and generally what your business pertains to. This will help improve the user comprehension, but also inform Google what your site pertains to, which will be advantageous in SEO for your homepage, as well as for your entire website.
Instead of trying to rank No. 1 for all five of your key terms on the homepage, make specific pages for those terms and focus the homepage content on user intent. It should also serve as a home base to deeper dive into other parts of your site. When optimizing for SEO on your homepage, it should be correctly laid out from an SEO perspective-we’ll get into that-and have a clear, overarching theme.
If there’s one keyword you want your homepage to rank for, it should be the name of your brand. The reason is that if people are searching online for your business, it just makes perfect sense that you’ll send them to the homepage. You can promote your brand organically this way on the homepage, introducing visitors to your business.
What If Your Brand Name Is Too Competitive?
If your site is set up correctly, and has a decent amount of backlinks pointing to it, your homepage should rank fairly well for your business name or brand. There’s one fairly significant exception to this rule, though. Many sites today use keyword-rich names like “Christmas Cookies,” “Grow Trees,” or “Cute Socks.” If your brand name happens to contain a keyword that someone would type into a search engine, then you’re in a bit of a difficult situation, because many other websites will want to rank for those keywords, too.
For those, our advice remains the same: center your homepage around the end-user and make it the best experience for him. Use your homepage as a presentation page about your brand and what your business can do for them. Make navigation to other pages easy to let them understand what they will get from your website. A positive user experience tells Google that users love your website, which is directly related to Google’s understanding of the purpose of your website through clear site structure, internal links, and targeted content. This will ultimately improve your rankings.
Optimise Your Homepage for SEO
As touched on above, SEO for your homepage isn’t just about focusing on two or three key terms. You might decide to optimize for your brand name as a key term, but we wouldn’t advise using all your willpower to get that green light on your homepage.
Generally speaking, the core of homepage SEO is focused around two things: telling Google what your site’s about, and optimizing the technical SEO. That includes a number of on-page technical elements: writing an interesting meta description, appropriately using header tags, including site speed and user experience. Here are the key elements of homepage SEO that you can optimize:
1. Optimize Page Title:
The title of the page should focus on your brand or main product.
2. Use of Appropriate Headings:
Use different heads by providing headings in order on the page.
3. Branding Viewability:
Use a highly recognizable logo at the top left corner for consistency in branding.
4. Creative Meta Description:
Attract visitors to you with an attractive meta description. You may also use emojis.
5. Minimum Links:
Avoid stuffing your home page, menu, and footer with too many links, but instead, focus on the most important pages.
6. Image and Text Balance:
Balance the use of images with text, highlighting key calls to action.
7. Alt Text for Images:
Include suitable alt text for every image that appears on your homepage.
8. Contact and Social Links:
Display full contact details, social network buttons, and/or a newsletter sign-up if applicable to your business.
9. Search Functionality:
If it would be beneficial for users, include a search bar by which they can find content on your website.
10. Site Speed:
Try to improve homepage/site-wide speed.
11. User Experience:
Be sure to take UX seriously, as it’s now a ranking factor.
12. Mobile Optimization:
A great number of end-users will be accessing via mobile devices.
13. Showcase E-A-T:
If you can, show your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
This checklist will help you assess and optimize your homepage, but many of these tips can be used on other pages of your site, too. It may seem a little overwhelming, but just remember: great oaks from little acorns grow, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. You don’t need to change everything at once-just incrementally optimize your page with priorities.
Ultimately, your homepage is so much more than an entry point to capture some very important keywords. Optimized well, it creates trust with future customers and concretes what your business is about, which actually helps Google understand what your website is relevant for and why it should rank high.