The 10 Most Important SEO Tips You Need to Know
We all know how important tools are to search engine optimization professionals. It’s virtually impossible to get any SEO task done without the help of a tool.
However, certain fundamental principles remain unchanged. For example, targeting keywords with the sole intent of improving organic rankings no longer works with search engines but choosing the right keywords is still an important piece to the puzzle. With so many SEO techniques, it’s become almost impossible to determine which ones to stick to and which you can safely ignore.
If you focus on these techniques alone, you’ll definitely drive more organic traffic to your blog and improve your search rankings without risking a Google penalty. So let's get start with:
1. Remove anything that slows down your site.
In the past, you could get away with a slow-loading site. I can recall a time when I had to wait for about 5 minutes before a popular news site fully loaded. I’m sure you can relate to that. That’s never a good experience but it’s the kiss of death in today’s marketplace.
A slow page can frustrate the user experience and ultimately discourage people from buying your product. Data from Strange Loop shows that a mere 1-second delay in page load time can yield a whopping 7% loss in conversions.
2. Link to other websites with relevant content.
To most people, linking out to relevant and authoritative content pages is bad because it takes people off your page. But, I don’t think so. Link building remains a fundamental part of smart search engine optimization strategy. I like out to tons of high-quality sites and sources, including my direct competition. Why? Because it helps you, my reader.
If you’ve been reading my blogs, you’ll notice that linking out to other sites is my custom. Whenever I write a new post, I reference other trustworthy sites, where appropriate.
3. Write for humans first, search engines second.
Lately, I’ve noticed that more and more bloggers and content creators are going back to the old method of SEO, wherein keywords meant to drive search results surpassed the real qualities of engaging, valuable content. If that’s you, it’s absolutely time to change your mindset.
Copyblogger is my 1 site, when it comes to putting readers first. No wonder Brian Clark is so successful at content marketing. He’s even turned Copyblogger into a multi-million dollar digital marketing company.
4. Encourage other trustworthy sites to link to you.
When you combine dofollow and nofollow links, you get a natural link profile that even Google will reward. Content marketing is all about creating high-quality, engaging content and creating in people the need and urgency to link to you and share your content on social media.
The major determining factor in my success is that I invest a lot of time, money, and resources into creating a single post or other piece of content. How much effort do you suppose when into creating, “The Complete Guide to Building Your Personal Brand”?
5. Have web analytics in place at the start.
After defining your search engine optimization goals clearly, you need software to track what’s working and what’s not. Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other private web analytics software solutions can help you track your success. Tools like Crazy Egg also show you where your site visitors are clicking and how they navigate away from your site.
6. Write unique and relevant meta descriptions for every page.
One of the most important SEO tips that most people neglect is the well-crafted meta description. Generally, the search engine giant doesn’t like duplicate content. Yes, there are times when there is a need to cite a paragraph or sentence from another site (and link back to the source), but if publishing duplicate content becomes your way of life, you will find it nearly impossible to become a long-term success.
In the same vein, duplicate meta descriptions could get you into trouble. But, even if you don’t get penalized straight away, you’re still not providing a great user experience.
7. Use readable and meaningful URLs only.
If users can’t read or understand your URL, then search engines may be confused as well. Granted, the URL above is long, but it’s easy to understand, for both users and search engines. There are no numbers or characters, other than the words and dashes.
Even in this age of search evolution, including RankBrain, search spiders are still programs, not humans. You need to guide them accordingly. Brian Dean’s structure is what people should be doing and what I ended up doing as well. He ensures that only 2-4 words are included in any URL.
9. Use the right keywords in your images.
Images are important in search engine optimization. Google dedicated an entire section of its search results to images. This should tell you how concerned the search engine giant is with pictures. When users are looking for a particular image, what do they search with?
For this reason, you should use the right keywords in your image names and accompanying text (like the caption). Of course, this is not permission to engage in keyword stuffing. Always remember that in search engine optimization, relevance is more important than creativity or cleverness.
10. Create & publish unique content consistently to improve your rankings.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, producing unique and engaging content is a challenge for most marketers. It’s even more important than you might think, due to something called the “fresh factor.” Unique content is one of the factors that affect this freshness score, and, consequently, the search engine rankings for that specific page.
If you’re not Brian Dean, who’s mastered the art of content promotion and can regularly get tens of thousands of users to read a new post and share it with others on social media, the easiest way to optimize your freshness score is by creating content consistently.
Conclusion
The age of a domain or web page is also one of the top SEO tips you should keep in mind. Indeed, it’s crucial for your success. For this reason, don’t constantly change your domain name. Pick one and stick with it, unless there’s a very good reason to change.
If you’ve published a post in the past that’s no longer relevant to users, especially due to the recent Google changes, then instead of writing a new piece of content from scratch, work to update that page. Or worst case scenario, 301 redirect it to a newer, fresher piece of content on your site that is relevant to the original article.