Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves optimizing your website to make it easily understandable by search engines like Google. This helps your center appear in search results when users use relevant keywords. In this blog, we'll discuss some minor SEO quirks that are often overlooked but can make a huge impact.
If you're a pregnancy center director, you've likely heard of SEO, but you may be unfamiliar with how it works, how to improve it, or even how to know if your website uses it well.
Essentially, SEO helps search robots understand your website's content. Google then reads through your website and organizes it in its database. Once there, Google can pull up your center in search results based on what people are looking for and where they live.
Without SEO, search engines will struggle to really understand what your website stands for, regardless of the quality of your content.
But if your primary form of traffic is paid ads, does SEO still matter? Yes, even more so. That's because Google Ads takes SEO into account in its bidding strategy. The better your SEO, the more affordable your ads will be.
Here are some simple ways you can improve SEO on your website:
On any given website page, there are larger fonts called Headers, each with a designation on their importance. An H1, for example, stands for "Header 1" and is the most important header on the page—a web page should only have one H1.
A good website will also use lesser-ranked headers such as H2s, H3s, H4s, etc.
Headers play a crucial role because they inform Google about the primary topic of a page (the H1) and provide context for related subtopics (the H2s and H3s).
To check out which headers you're using, highlight the header, right-click, and then select "inspect."
For example, here is the Pregnancy Test page on our demo website:
This will bring up a bunch of HTML code on the right side of your browser. Don't worry! You haven't broken anything. What you're looking at is the website code. This is what Google sees when it reads your website.
It should highlight what you've selected and tell you which Header is being used:
The H1 for this page is "Access Free Pregnancy Tests." Since this is the H1, Google clearly knows that this is a good page to send people to for free pregnancy tests.
Google doesn't have eyes. So, when you have images on your website, you need to tell search engines what the images are about.
Make sure your images have an alt-text with a relevant keyword.
You can check image alt text the same way you check the headers:
When you look up your center on Google Maps, you'll likely find your Google MyBusiness listing. Having a solid business listing helps your site improve in local listings.
This local performance can be improved further by having your business listing embedded on your site. However, there is a right and wrong way to do this:
Here's a snippet from Hope Pregnancy Center in Killeen, Texas. Notice how the map embeds links back to their Google MyBusiness listing. This helps Google better associate the center's services with its location.
Many times, pregnancy websites have a map embedded on a web page but fail to link it to their Google MyBusiness listing. If your map embed only shows an address and not the name of your site, it's embedded incorrectly.
Another way to boost local search results is by mentioning your locations in relevant places. For example, if you have a "Free Pregnancy Test" page, it may be good to rename it "Free Pregnancy Test in <Location>." Additionally, check out the URL. Sometimes, it helps to include your location there, too.
In reality, most people who require your services will access them on their cell phones. When was the last time you audited its mobile performance?
In this case, it's a little more complicated to check for optimization from an eye test. For this, you'll need someone with website analysis software to tell you how you're doing.
It's not just about how your website looks on mobile but also about page load speed, image compression, and other mobile-first features.
If you'd like help determining whether you're following these SEO best practices, we're here to help. We've analyzed hundreds of pregnancy center websites and can quickly and easily guide you on best practices. Simply schedule a time to chat to get started.
Alternatively, if you want to buy a website that already follows these best practices, check out our website demos.