Umbraco SEO Tips: How to Make Your Umbraco Website Rank Better

A website ranking well on search engines is essential for business success. Whether running a simple blog or an advanced eCommerce platform, ensuring your website is visible to your target audience can drive more traffic, improve user engagement, and boost sales. 

If your website is built on Umbraco, a powerful and flexible content management system (CMS), optimizing it for SEO is crucial to achieving better rankings. Working with an experienced Umbraco web agency can help ensure your optimization efforts are implemented correctly.

In this blog post, we’ll explore effective Umbraco SEO tips to improve your website's visibility, improve search engine rankings, and deliver a superior user experience.

What is On-Page SEO for Umbraco?

On-page SEO involves optimizing individual pages on your website to improve their position in search rankings. With Umbraco, you have a flexible platform that allows you to make numerous on-page SEO improvements. These changes can help enhance your website’s search engine visibility and user experience.

Let's discuss actionable tips to help you make the most of your Umbraco website development.

1. Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

The first things users see in search engine results are title tags and meta descriptions. Although Umbraco doesn’t provide them by default, most themes and starter kits include these SEO features for a reason—they are essential. Customizing each page's title tags and meta descriptions is a simple yet effective way to improve SEO.

To optimize them:

• Title tags should be concise and include the main keyword relevant to the page.
• Meta descriptions should provide a brief and engaging summary of the page content while incorporating target keywords.

Umbraco allows you to set a maximum character limit to prevent descriptions from being cut off in search results. Doing this ensures that every page stands out and entices users to click.

2. Utilize ALT Text for Images

Images are a powerful component of any website, but they must be optimized to enhance their impact on SEO. Umbraco allows you to add ALT text to every image you upload, and this is not just a nice-to-have — it's a critical SEO factor. ALT text helps search engines understand the content of an image and improve accessibility.

Here’s how you can take this further:

• Mandatory ALT Text: Configure Umbraco to make ALT text a required field whenever an image is uploaded. This ensures all your images are optimized for SEO.
• Relevant Keywords: Use relevant keywords in your ALT text to increase visibility in search engines.

3. Keyword Optimization and Content Strategy

The right use of keywords can make a difference in your SEO efforts. It’s important to focus on the obvious keywords and consider long-tail keywords your audience might search for. Conduct regular keyword research to keep up with trends and changes in search behavior.

Content on your Umbraco website should be regularly updated to match these keyword shifts. Creating high-quality, engaging content will naturally improve your rankings and attract more visitors to your site.

4. Internal Linking Strategy

Internal links are a great way to improve the structure of your Umbraco website. When done right, they help both users and search engines navigate your site. Internal links also pass on SEO value (link juice) across pages, improving the ranking of less visible content.

How to improve internal linking:

• Ensure every page is linked to relevant content on your site.
• Use anchor text that includes keywords related to the linked content.
• Regularly audit your site to remove broken or outdated links.

5. Use H1, H2, and H3 Tags Effectively

Headings organize content and play a crucial role in SEO. Proper use of H1, H2, and H3 tags helps create a hierarchy of information and improves readability for users and search engines.

In Umbraco, you can easily manage these heading tags with its rich text editor. Here's how you can improve SEO using headings:

• H1 tag: Use this for the main title of your page. Ensure it only appears once per page to maintain SEO best practices.
• H2 and H3 tags: Use these for subheadings and logically organize your content. Incorporate secondary keywords here.

6. Optimize for Mobile and Responsive Design

Google now uses mobile-first indexing, meaning your website's mobile version is considered the primary version for ranking purposes.

Umbraco’s flexibility allows you to create a responsive design that adapts seamlessly across different devices. This will improve user experience and increase your chances of ranking higher in search engine results.

7. Implement Canonical Tags to Avoid Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can negatively impact your SEO efforts. Umbraco provides an easy way to add canonical tags to prevent search engines from penalizing your site for duplicate content.

Canonical tags signal the original page version to search engines, consolidating ranking signals and improving your site's SEO performance.

8. Manage Broken Links and 404 Errors

A broken link or 404 error frustrates users and search engines. Umbraco automatically returns a 404 status code for missing pages, but you can improve user experience by customizing your error page. This allows users to find other relevant content rather than leaving the site.

Ensure all broken links are fixed regularly and redirect them to relevant pages if necessary. Tools like Google Search Console and Screaming Frog can help you detect broken links on your Umbraco site.

9. Implement hreflang Tags for Multilingual Sites

If your Umbraco website supports multiple languages, it’s crucial to implement hreflang tags. These tags tell search engines which language version of a page to display, helping to avoid content duplication issues and improving the experience for international visitors.

Umbraco makes it easy to manage multilingual sites by allowing you to create different content versions for each language. Adding hreflang tags ensures that search engines properly index these versions, enhancing your global SEO efforts.

10. Leverage Google Analytics and Search Console

Monitoring your Umbraco website's SEO regularly is important to ensure it's on track. Whether you hire Umbraco developers or work with an established Umbraco development company, implementing proper analytics tracking is crucial. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you track key metrics such as traffic, bounce rates, keyword rankings, and user behavior.

This data will allow you to make informed decisions on which areas of your website need improvement and optimize accordingly.

Conclusion

Umbraco offers incredible flexibility and customizability, making it an excellent choice for businesses looking to improve their SEO efforts. By applying these Umbraco SEO tips, you’ll be well on your way to improving your website’s rankings and driving more qualified traffic.

If you're looking to take your Umbraco website to the next level, whether it's improving SEO, enhancing user experience, or developing a robust Umbraco ecommerce platform, partnering with a trusted Umbraco development company is essential.

At Saffron Tech, we specialize in Umbraco website development, and we can help you optimize your website for higher visibility, better rankings, and improved user engagement. Hire Umbraco developers from Saffron Tech today to maximize your online potential!