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With the constantly changing search engine optimisation (SEO) rules and algorithms, it’s a good idea to keep up to date with the news and updates to know what else could make your translation website more findable and Google-friendly.

One thing that never changes is: Google wants you to provide meaningful and useful content.

It is no longer enough or even recommended to stuff your texts with keywords, especially after it’s been written. It’s better to research your audience’s search intent and see what questions they’re asking, what phrases they are using, what questions they have about your industry and answer them in your content.

This is especially true for websites with a blog, as every blog post could be answering your audience’s search terms and questions.

But how can you evaluate or improve your website’s SEO ranking starting today? What are the basics?

1. Start from well-written website content that answers your client’s questions.

Write with your audience in mind and take into account “typed” searches as well as voice searches, which are supposed to reach 50% of all browser searches by 2020. Remember that the next time you try targeting local businesses, as voice search is often used to find local businesses in the area or solutions to problems.

2. Adjust meta titles and descriptions to help Google know what the website is about.

It will also help your visitors see what the website is about and enable them to find you and click on your link. With WordPress you can do that with a plugin such as Yoast SEO or All in one SEO Pack. They are very helpful and intuitive in optimising every page of your website. For other builders such as Wix or Square Space, you will have separate options they provide to adjust your meta titles and descriptions. Don’t skip this step, otherwise Google will choose random text from your website and it may decrease visitor click-through chances!

3. Link to your website from other platforms, websites and social media.

Once you have a website address, don’t just leave it there and put it on your business cards. Use all available profiles and sources to get your link out there. And if you can get backlinks from writing a guest article somewhere on a much bigger and better ranked website, that’s even better! Always think about ways you can get your website link posted somewhere else. Maybe you can provide a testimonial for a product or software and they will include your link with it on their website? Think about what you can do to increase backlinks in your particular situation.

4. Try blogging. Having a blog can boost your findability significantly.

I know a few translators who have done that – they achieved it by publishing consistent, relevant blog content, and also shareable content which others want to link to, increasing the positioning of their website for client search terms.

5. Have your website optimised for mobile devices.

Over 50% of searches already come from mobile, so make sure you check how your website looks on your mobile device and adjust anything that doesn’t look right. Test it on different devices and make sure the user experience is good on the desktop and mobile versions alike.

6. Keep your website secure with HTTPS at the beginning of your website address.

Also known as an SSL certificate, this is important for GDPR as well as Google results. Nobody likes an unsecure website and definitely not Google. It just doesn’t project trust and may signal unsecure content, which could lead to you getting bumped down in search results.

7. Check the speed of your website.

Although this will also depend on a user’s internet connection and servers – not something you can always control – you can try to optimise the bits you can control such as using smaller images, optimising scripts and adding extra speed optimising plugins. This will make the website slightly quicker and more SEO and visitor friendly.

8. Pay attention to the way your links are structured.

This is not entirely recommended if you already have a long-standing website, unless you know how to do link redirections. But if you are setting up your website for the first time or it is still young, you can try constructing the URLs in the most beneficial way for people to find you. For example, you can choose your website to be mytranslations.com/germantranslations to give an extra keyword and extra idea of what the page is about. This will of course depend on the number and kind of pages that you have, but you can add a little bit extra positive SEO to your website this way.

9. Include alt attributes if you have photos on your website.

This basically means the text would appear if the photo is not visible, which also marginally counts towards SEO, especially if you have lots of photos on your website.

10. Connect your website to Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools for more insights and more active management of your website.

I know not all translators want to do it, but it is really useful if you are actually planning content campaigns. You’ll also be able to control your search positioning more closely, adapt pages, see customer journeys and submit your website for faster indexing every time you change something.

SEO is so effective for boosting your website, so it’s really handy to know at least the basics.

I hope this gives you a good idea on what can be done to improve your website’s SEO and if you have any further questions, I’d love to discuss it with you!

Do you have your own SEO tips? Something that worked particularly well for you? Do share!