Homepage Seo: What Makes It Unique & How To Do It

What’s Different About Homepage SEO?

Optimizing your homepage for SEO is different from moving connected blog posts aliases merchandise pages. Unlike those pages, your homepage serves arsenic nan cardinal hub of your site, and it usually doesn’t attraction connected conscionable 1 keyword.

It plays a less cardinal roles by:

• Introducing your marque to caller visitors
• Guiding visitors to cardinal sections of your site
• Creating a beardown first belief of your business

From an SEO perspective, nan superior extremity for homepage optimization is usually to rank for branded keywords (like your institution name). So group tin easy find you successful hunt centrifugal results pages (SERPs).

However, a well-optimized homepage tin too rank for non-branded, high-traffic keywords.

For example, Clockify’s homepage ranks for complete 8,000 keywords, including non-branded keywords for illustration “time tracker,” "time hunt software," and "timesheet software," which make plentifulness of integrated traffic. 

(And are ace applicable to what they offer: clip hunt tools.)

Improving your homepage for SEO doesn’t mean sacrificing personification acquisition (UX), your trading funnel, aliases your page design. Good SEO really makes these amended by focusing connected what users petition and making your homepage easy to usage and navigate. 

Let’s investigation really you tin thief your homepage rank for overmuch than conscionable branded terms.

How to Optimize Your Homepage for SEO

1. Identify Your Primary Keyword

Your superior keyword is nan instauration of your homepage SEO. It should intelligibly image your business, lucifer what group are searching for (known arsenic hunt intent), and thief them find what they need.

While this keyword defines nan attraction of your page, bully homepage SEO tin too thief your homepage rank for dozens—or moreover hundreds—of related terms. 

However, erstwhile choosing your superior keyword, support these cardinal questions successful mind:

• Is your homepage already ranking? If it’s already ranking for high-value keywords, optimizing it further whitethorn not beryllium necessary. Poor optimization aliases targeting nan incorrect keywords could wounded your rankings, alternatively than thief them.
• What does your income chimney look like? Blogs and content-driven sites often prioritize individual posts complete their homepage for postulation and conversions. But SaaS businesses, activity providers, and conception businesses tin usage from utilizing their homepage arsenic a landing page.
• Are you readying to expand? If you target a narrow, location-specific keyword for illustration “Plumber successful Seattle,” your homepage mightiness rank bully for that city. However, this could root problems if you strategy to move your business into caller regions aliases relationship further services successful nan future.
• What are your competitors doing? Analyze nan hunt results for your target keywords. If astir competitors rank their homepages, it mightiness make consciousness to recreation their lead. However, if activity pages bladed to rank well, you mightiness want to spot focusing connected those instead.

Answering these questions tin thief you create a clear keyword strategy for your homepage and guarantee it aligns pinch your wide business goals.

Once you’ve considered these factors, commencement brainstorming keywords that image your business.

For example, if your business is simply a instrumentality that helps group build their ain websites, imaginable superior keywords could spot “website builder,” “create a site,” aliases “website building tool.”

Next, cheque your competitors’ sites to spot what keywords they prioritize connected their homepage. 

For example, Wix, a instrumentality that helps you build websites, uses nan connection "website builder" connected their homepage. 

If you hunt for “website builder” connected Google, you’ll announcement Wix, Canva, Squarespace, and Weebly each spot this keyword successful their title tags (more connected them soon).

This suggests that "website builder" is simply a logical superior keyword for a instrumentality that helps group to build their ain websites. And it apt intends your target assemblage commonly searches for this keyword.

Once you’ve brainstormed immoderate ideas and reviewed competitor’s sites, refine your keyword strategy pinch Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

It helps you observe related keywords, analyse hunt volume, and find position that align pinch your audience’s needs. So you tin target nan correct keywords connected your homepage pinch confidence.

Start by entering 1 of your seed keywords into nan instrumentality and clicking “Search.”

For example, let’s opportunity you participate “website builder” into nan hunt bar.

You’ll spot a dashboard pinch thousands of related keyword suggestions, for illustration this:

Focus connected keywords that are applicable to your product, service, aliases website. And don’t make your superior keyword overly circumstantial (unless it powerfully matches your offering).

For example, unless your website builder is specifically for belief websites, “best belief website builder” apt isn’t nan champion superior keyword to target. 

Once you personification a database of imaginable keywords, premier a superior and secondary keyword:

• Primary keyword: Pick nan keyword that champion describes your homepage and aligns pinch personification intent. Your superior keyword is often nan astir applicable keyword pinch nan highest hunt volume.
• Secondary keywords: Choose related phrases that complement your superior keyword. These thief your homepage rank for variations and summation its visibility successful SERPs, while too providing Google and your users pinch overmuch sermon astir your website.

Using Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, you mightiness find that “website builder” is your champion superior keyword, while “free website builder” and “build a website” work arsenic beardown secondary keywords.

2. Optimize Your Homepage’s Content

After selecting your superior and secondary keywords, nan adjacent measurement is to optimize your homepage contented for those keywords. This helps hunt engines amended understand your tract and it ensures visitors quickly grasp what your business offers.

Here are nan cardinal areas of your homepage to optimize:

Title Tag and Meta Description

Your title tag and meta explanation are 2 cardinal elements Google often displays successful SERPs. They thief hunt engines understand your page and springiness users a preview of what to expect.

Your title tag is nan clickable header that tin look successful SERPs. It should spot your superior keyword and marque name, and it should intelligibly image your page.

Your meta description is simply a short summary that tin look successful SERPs beneath nan title tag. It tells users what your page offers. Use immoderate secondary keywords coming group if possible, and make nan mentation engaging to beforehand clicks.

Let’s return a look astatine an illustration from Canva. They usage their marque name, superior keywords for illustration "website builder," and secondary keywords (like “create a free website” and “free website builder”) successful their title tag and meta mentation to maximize visibility and thrust clicks:

Headings and Body Content

Structuring your homepage pinch headings and organized contented helps users navigate and makes it easier for hunt engines to understand what your page is about.

Headings and assemblage contented are defined by HTML tags that create a contented hierarchy:

• H1 (main heading): Use a short, clear header that includes your superior keyword and states what your business does. Use only 1 <h1> per page. 
• H2, H3, H4 (subheadings): Use these to break contented into sections and group spot secondary keywords. H2s coming sections, while H3 and small adhd subsections.
• Body contented (<p>): Aim to spot your superior keyword successful nan first 100 words of your assemblage contented (ideally sooner). Also usage your secondary keywords group passim nan text.

Toggl Track’s homepage is simply a awesome illustration of effective headings and content:

• The H1 intelligibly conveys nan product’s intent (time hunt for teams)
• Subheadings—containing secondary keywords—create scannable sections
• The assemblage matter group integrates keywords while emphasizing cardinal benefits

To streamline your contented optimization efforts, usage Semrush’s On-Page SEO Checker. It offers actionable insights to thief amended your homepage contented pinch ease.

After mounting up nan tool, you’ll onshore connected a dashboard that looks for illustration this:

From here, click connected pages successful nan “Top Pages to Optimize” database for circumstantial recommendations. Or caput to nan “Optimization Ideas” tab for a afloat overview.

Then click nan “# ideas” fastener adjacent to each page to position elaborate suggestions.

The contented conception checks if you’ve utilized your target keywords successful important areas for illustration nan H1 and assemblage text. The instrumentality too flags keyword stuffing.

If nan instrumentality does observe issues, you’ll personification suggestions for illustration this:

You’ll too personification suggestions for related keywords (also known arsenic semantic keywords) to further optimize your homepage.

Visuals

Visuals (such arsenic images and videos) tin make your homepage overmuch engaging. They tin too amended nan UX by breaking up matter and guiding visitors’ attention. And they tin thief you show disconnected what you personification to offer.

Without visuals, your visitors whitethorn consciousness overwhelmed by blocks of text. And they whitethorn spot cardinal messages aliases benefits of your merchandise aliases service.

Here’s really to usage visuals effectively:

• Reinforce cardinal messages. Place visuals adjacent important headings aliases sections to point cardinal points and support users engaged.
• Showcase merchandise benefits. Use screenshots, diagrams, aliases videos to visually show really your merchandise useful aliases solves a circumstantial problem.
• Make contented scannable. Break up agelong sections of matter pinch images aliases infographics to make nan accusation easier to digest.

Here are immoderate real-life examples sites that are doing this well:

Calendly, a SaaS business that provides a almanac and scheduling tool, uses a screenshot of its scheduling interface to show really easy it is to book meetings immediately. Supporting matter beneath nan H1 integrates its superior keyword (“scheduling tool”) to reenforce nan message.

Basecamp, a task guidance software, uses merchandise screenshots to point really their level organizes tasks and projects. 

Visuals for illustration calendars and task cards show really easy their instrumentality is to use. Plus, they group support their superior keyword (“project guidance system”).

Once your visuals are successful place, optimize them for hunt engines by utilizing descriptive grounds names and alt text. Use keywords successful immoderate to thief users and hunt engines understand nan contented of your visuals. 

Also compress your grounds sizes. Do this pinch a instrumentality for illustration TinyPNG aliases Clideo to support worth while improving your page speed.

Further reading: Image SEO: How to Optimize Images for Search Engines & Users

Structured Data

Structured accusation (also called schema markup) is different codification you tin adhd to your homepage that helps hunt engines understand your content. Such arsenic your business’s name, address, telephone number, website URL, logo, and societal media links.

Here’s what it looks for illustration connected nan backend:

For homepages, statement schema is arguably nan astir important because it highlights cardinal specifications astir your business.

While users don’t spot schema, it helps hunt engines get further sermon astir your business. It tin past usage this accusation to thief it understand what to show successful hunt results. 

If your business has a knowledge sheet (a instrumentality that appears successful Google hunt results showing cardinal facts astir your business), adding schema tin thief refine nan accusation shown.

Like this:

3. Create a Great User Experience (UX)

Creating a awesome UX keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to investigation your tract further. Here are immoderate areas to attraction connected to create a awesome UX for tract visitors.

Site Navigation

Site navigation, aliases tract architecture, refers to really your website's pages are strategy and interconnected. Think of it arsenic your site’s blueprint, guiding visitors to nan contented they petition while too helping hunt engines understand your site.

And your header navigation—the main insubstantial astatine nan apical of your site—is important for creating a seamless personification experience. 

It should:

• Avoid overwhelming visitors pinch excessively galore options
• Provide a elemental and logical measurement to your astir important pages
• Use clear, descriptive labels truthful visitors cognize wherever each nexus leads

For larger sites, drop-down menus tin group related contented into categories and subcategories, making navigation easier.

For example, Gymshark’s header navigation includes a drop-down insubstantial for “Accessories” pinch clear categories for illustration “Trending,” “Footwear,” “Bags,” and “Equipment.” 

This well-structured insubstantial allows visitors to quickly find what they need, enhancing nan wide personification experience. Plus, point that makes it faster and easier for users to find what they are looking to bargain is bully for nan business too.

Footer navigation, located astatine nan bottommost of your site, acts arsenic a cardinal hub for secondary information. It’s an cleanable abstraction for links that aren’t information of your main insubstantial but are still valuable to users.

Common footer links spot institution policies (like privacy, cookies, and position and conditions), relationship information, spot details, and pages for illustration “About Us” and “Careers.”

Gymshark’s footer organizes links into sections for illustration “Help,” “My Account,” and “Pages.” It too includes speedy entree to customer support, narration management, and societal media links, ensuring visitors tin easy find nan accusation they need.

Note: Your header insubstantial and footer are typically coming crossed your afloat website—not conscionable your homepage. But optimizing them arsenic information of your homepage SEO still makes sense, fixed your homepage will work arsenic nan preamble constituent for a batch of your site’s visitors.

Page Speed

A slow homepage tin frustrate visitors, summation bounce rates, and wounded your rankings. So you’ll want to attraction connected tract capacity erstwhile optimizing your homepage’s SEO.

Google uses Core Web Vitals (CWV) to measurement really bully your tract performs. 

These metrics cheque 3 things:

1. Loading speed: How accelerated nan largest constituent of your page (often an image aliases artifact of text) appears (Largest Contentful Paint)
2. Interactivity: How accelerated your tract responds erstwhile users click, scroll, aliases type (Interaction to Next Paint)
3. Visual stability: Whether nan page layout stays dependable while loading, avoiding abrupt shifts that tin frustrate visitors (Cumulative Layout Shift)

In elemental terms, CWVs cheque if your website is fast, responsive, and stable, ensuring a soft acquisition for visitors. And Google favors accelerated sites, truthful improving page velocity and your CWV is crucial.

Here are 3 easy ways to amended your homepage’s loading velocity and meet CWV standards:

• Compress your images: Use devices for illustration TinyPNG to compress image files without losing quality. Also usage modern formats for illustration WebP for faster loading times.
• Minimize code: Remove unused codification and scripts that slow down your site. And trim nan size of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): CDNs velocity up load times by distributing your website’s contented crossed servers worldwide. This ensures speedy entree for users successful different locations.

Mobile Experience

Google predominantly uses nan mobile versions of websites to find ranking (known arsenic mobile-first indexing). So, optimizing your tract for mobile is basal for immoderate personification acquisition and your rankings.

Here’s really to optimize your homepage for mobile users:

• Responsive design: Ensure your homepage automatically adjusts to different aboveground sizes and orientations pinch responsive web design
• Simplify navigation: Use a hamburger insubstantial for compact, clear navigation. Make judge buttons and links are ample tin to pat easy connected a touchscreen.
• Optimize mobile load times: Focus connected improving page velocity for mobile users by compressing images and avoiding dense graphics aliases animations
• Avoid intrusive pop-ups: Minimize aliases destruct pop-ups that surface nan screen, arsenic they frustrate users and tin negatively effect your rankings

Further reading: The Complete Guide to Mobile SEO: 8 Tips & Best Practices

4. Showcase EEAT 

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is simply a exemplary Google uses to measurement nan worth of tract content. It’s a conception rooted successful Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, a handbook that guides really Google’s reviewers measurement nan worth of hunt results.

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While not a nonstop ranking factor, demonstrating beardown E-E-A-T tin thief you build spot pinch your assemblage and summation your content’s credibility and relevance. This successful move tin lead to overmuch conversions for your business.

Here’s really to guarantee your homepage builds trust:

• Convey your intent clearly. Your homepage should instantly walk its purpose—whether it’s introducing your business, guiding users toward circumstantial pages, aliases showcasing your products and services.
• Provide cardinal information. Prominently show your business name, relationship details, and an overview of your services aliases products.
• Show credibility done validation. Include third-party validation for illustration reviews, awards, aliases certifications. Feature testimonials, suit studies, aliases videos that show your expertise and build trust.
• Simplify personification experience. Avoid overwhelming users pinch irrelevant information. Focus connected gathering their contiguous needs quickly and clearly.
• Avoid deceptive practices. Don’t usage clickbait, overpromise features, aliases spot misleading content. Ensure your page delivers precisely what users expect based connected your headlines and descriptions.

5. Add Internal Links to and From Your Homepage

Internal links nexus different pages incorrect your site. They thief users navigate your tract and make it easier for hunt engines to understand your site’s structure. 

Your homepage plays a captious domiciled arsenic nan cardinal hub of your website, guiding users to cardinal sections and distributing page authority done applicable psyche links.

Here are 2 cardinal ways to usage psyche linking to amended your homepage SEO:

• Guide users to cardinal pages. Link prominently to basal pages for illustration “About Us,” “Services,” “Products,” and “Contact Us.”
• Feature high-value content. Use sections connected your homepage to point products/services, suit studies, aliases blog posts.

For example, Petco’s homepage includes a “Top Sellers” conception that directs users to immoderate of its astir celebrated and high-value merchandise pages:

Petco too highlights apical categories for dogs and cats. This makes it easy for visitors to investigation applicable merchandise pages tailored to their needs:

Adding cardinal sections for illustration this helps visitors quickly find what they’re looking for, while allowing Petco to showcase its astir important products. 

This onslaught enhances nan personification acquisition by guiding visitors to nan correct pages. It too helps hunt engines amended understand and prioritize cardinal pages connected your site.

6. Earn Backlinks to Your Homepage

Backlinks are links from different sites to your site. When charismatic sites nexus to your homepage (or immoderate different page), it signals to hunt engines that your tract is trustworthy and valuable. 

Having a precocious number of worth backlinks can:

• Drive referral postulation from users clicking those links
• Help hunt engines observe your contented overmuch effectively
• Improve your rankings by expanding your site’s authority

For example, nan homepage of nytimes.com has complete 2.1 cardinal backlinks. Including ones from reputable sites for illustration bbc.co.uk and microsoft.com.

This helps lend to its precocious “Page” Authority Score (84).

Plus, nytimes.com receives 20.4 cardinal visits from referral postulation (across each backlinks to nan site—not conscionable nan homepage).

Here are proven methods to summation high-quality backlinks:

• Engage successful integer PR. Create integer PR campaigns to get featured successful manufacture news, blogs, aliases podcasts to summation backlinks.
• Collaborate pinch influencers and manufacture experts. Work pinch influencers to beforehand your marque and inquire them to nexus to your homepage successful their content.
• Leverage business relationships. Request backlinks from partners, vendors, aliases clients who mightiness point your marque connected their sites.

• Fix room backlinks. Identify surgery links pointing to your homepage and inquire tract owners to move them pinch an updated URL.

For overmuch info connected really to build high-quality backlinks to your site, cheque retired nan pursuing guides:

• Link Building for SEO: A Guide to nan Basics
• 10 Link Building Strategies That Work 

7. Fix Any Technical SEO Issues

Fixing method SEO issues ensures your tract runs smoothly for immoderate hunt engines and users.

Search engines usage crawlers to investigation your tract and yet find if they should standard and rank your content. So, method issues tin make it difficult (or impossible) for Google to find and yet show your website successful hunt results. Making fixing these issues a awesome priority.

Semrush’s Site Audit instrumentality helps you spot and resoluteness method SEO issues.

Once nan instrumentality crawls your site, it provides a “Site Health” group that ranges from 0 to 100, offering a clear group of your site’s wide method health. It too compares your site’s capacity pinch others successful your industry.

The audit categorizes your tract issues by severity into “Errors,” “Warnings,” and “Notices.” For a overmuch targeted approach, attraction connected circumstantial areas of method SEO utilizing nan Thematic Reports.

The “Issues” tab provides a complete breakdown of each detected issues and nan number of affected pages, connected pinch elaborate “Why and really to spread it” guidance to thief you resoluteness each problem.

For a caller site, it’s important to do a method SEO audit correct distant to make judge your tract has a coagulated method foundation. 

After that, you should cheque your tract regularly—once a play if possible, aliases astatine slightest each 3 months—to drawback and spread immoderate problems earlier they commencement affecting your rankings.

Track nan SEO Performance of Your Homepage

Monitoring nan SEO capacity of your homepage is important for knowing really bully it meets your goals and aligns pinch personification intent. 

Semrush’s Position Tracking instrumentality lets you show your homepage’s rankings for circumstantial keywords complete time.

The instrumentality allows you to:

• Track your website's regular keyword rankings crossed hunt engines and devices 
• Identify competitors targeting your keywords and comparison their rankings, visibility, and postulation against yours
• Group keywords by topics, campaigns, aliases goals utilizing tags to amended style your hunt and insights
• Access useful metrics for illustration visibility, banal of voice, estimated traffic, and ranking trends complete time

Once you’ve group up keyword tracking, spell to nan “Overview” tab to position metrics for your tracked keywords.

Scroll down to nan “Rankings Overview” section, wherever you’ll find a database of your keywords, your existent rankings for each one, and really your positions personification changed complete time.

Try nan Position Tracking instrumentality coming to show your homepage’s keyword rankings.