Shane Barker — March 12, 2018 — March 12, 2018
For any online business today, it’s important to understand the meaning and importance of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is crucial to survive and thrive in today’s competitive digital landscape. For the uninitiated, it’s a framework that needs to be followed by a webmaster to optimize their website.
Search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google serve billions of users every day by providing answers to their questions. The first page of Google search results gets more than 90% of total user clicks while the remaining pages get less than 10%. So you see why it’s important to secure a top rank on search engines, right?
SEO has enormous potential to make a business successful. It can improve your search rankings. Naturally, this helps marketers meet their business objectives of boosting conversions. 82% of marketers agree that SEO is an effective marketing strategy for business success.
This post talks about some of the most successful, impactful, and creative SEO tactics for your business. These are the ones which every marketer should focus on.
1. Develop a Mobile-Friendly Website
Mobile devices are rapidly taking over the world. The use of mobile devices for searches is also increasing steadily. Searches on mobile devices have surpassed computers in 10 countries, including Japan and the United States.
So if you want to stay competitive, you need to create a website which is mobile-friendly. It should also be created in a way that is responsive to all mobile screen sizes.
Google attaches importance to mobile-friendliness when it comes to mobile search rankings. Their mobile-friendly test can help you check if your website is mobile-friendly or not. Google even provides a set of guidelines on how to make your website mobile-friendly.
Image via Google
2. Create Detailed and Quality Content
Fresh content that’s informative and valuable has an impact on your website’s search rankings. So many SEO experts focus on developing quality content rather than simply optimizing it for keywords. More than 70% of marketers have reported an increase in both the quality and quantity of leads from good quality content.
However, the most challenging part of this strategy is to create fresh content regularly. In fact, as many as 60% of marketers create a minimum of one new piece of content every day. It needs to be engaging, appropriate, and exclusive. Such content requires thorough research and outstanding writing skills.
Search engines, especially Google, love new, original, and creative content. Google uses their Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) algorithm to scan the web for new content. And they update the search engine result pages (SERPs) if it finds anything fresh and new.
If you are having a hard time coming up with new and relevant content ideas, don’t worry. You can get help from tools like Google News and BuzzSumo. Using BuzzSumo, you can find the most shared topic in the last year. You can also use Google News to get an idea about the topics that are trending at the moment.
Image Via Google
Skyscraper technique is a simple and great way of producing high-quality content. By implementing this strategy and using your keyword, you can get an idea of the top content in your niche. With this, you get great ideas for your content as well as an understanding of what content works for your audience.
3. Make Your Web Pages Super-Fast
It is very annoying when a website takes too long to load. Put yourself in the shoes of your audiences, and try to gauge their reaction to a slow-loading website. In the age of 4G internet and lightning-fast speeds, users really do not have the patience to wait.
And when you keep them waiting for too long, the chances of them dropping off are high. As a result, you risk losing out on many potential customers, even if you have amazing content on your pages.
The loading speed of a website is an important factor used by Google to determine the ranking of the website. That’s why marketers should take the necessary measures to increase the loading speeds of their websites.
It’s a good idea to delete all useless links and unnecessary data. These links and data are often responsible for slowing down your website and increasing its loading time.
You can use Google PageSpeed Testing Tool, which is designed to check the speed of any webpage. Once you test your web pages, you can work on the feedback to optimize the speed of your webpage.
Image Source – Google
4. Use Long-Tail Keywords
Use long-tail keywords that are relevant to your services or products rather than using a single common keyword. By using long-tail keywords, you might rank in searches conducted by fewer number of people. However, they usually bring in a better quality of traffic to your web pages. As a result, they generate higher conversion rates.
For a newly launched website, it is highly advisable to use long-tail keywords instead of generic terms because of low authority and trust factors. So you must focus on identifying relevant long-tail keywords that have low competition, but that are capable of bringing decent traffic to your website.
Nearly 50% of all questions entered on search engines are made up of four or more words. Marketers should keep in mind that users ask precise questions using very specific keywords. So the keywords are long but on point, hence called long-tail keywords.
You can use long-tail keywords as key metrics and do competitor research. Find out what keywords your competitors are using to get relevant and qualified traffic. You can target hundreds of long-tail keywords for your website and monitor the growth to stay on the top of your competition.
5. Leverage the Voice Search Option
Voice search is an emerging feature being used for searches on mobiles. Voice search programs like Siri for Apple, Cortana for Windows, and Google Assistant are being used by an increasing number of people. These interfaces are being improved and updated regularly. Since 2008, there has been a huge increase of 3400% in voice searches.
By optimizing their content for voice search, marketers can increase their user base and expand their business. When your content is optimized for voice searches, there is a possibility of your article appearing in the answer box. This highlighted answer box is also known as a “rich answer” or “direct answer.”
Who wants to type a lot when you have the luxury of voice searches? You can optimize your content for voice searches by including conversational phrases. Figure out how people might talk about questions and their answers when asked in real life.
Also, think about the enquiries that your customers generally make. And develop content aimed at answering such enquiries. According to comScore, by 2020, 50% of searches will be voice searches. Hence, it is important for a marketer to take advantage of the voice search option.
Image via Google
Final Thoughts
SEO strategies are important for any business to expand and grow. But the SEO industry itself is changing very fast. New tactics and strategies are coming up every day. And to stay competitive, marketers need to constantly adapt themselves to these changes.
Instead of simply following what they already know, marketers should be willing to learn and try new strategies. By doing this, you will always stay ahead of your competitors and can grow your business successfully.
Can you think of any other SEO tactics apart from the ones mentioned above, that marketers must focus on? Feel free to comment below.
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