You may not think that your business lives and dies by Google, however, this assumption is wrong. Having a site that ranks well for highly-searched-for keywords helps so much that it’s difficult to put a definite price on it.
As you may well know, Google has altered and changed its algorithm majorly over the last number of years to stop people from keyword stuffing and spamming. They brought out updates after updates to help the best sites strive. This meant that the SEO industry was turned on its head.
Well, this means that the old best approach is now no longer the best approach. So what is the best approach? Here are 5 big SEO tips to improve your Google ranking this year.
Having a site without doing research on keywords is ie driving in the dark with no headlights on. You need to research what keywords people are looking for.
If you already have a large list of keywords, you can either put in those keywords manually or you can upload them as
a CSV file to get an idea of how commonly those keywords have been searched for. So, for example, you could enter a list of keywords and get search volume statistics.
See here an example of Google’s autocomplete. Notice how it is suggesting some long-tailed keywords that are commonly searched for. This is another tactic employed to research keywords
You can harvest keywords from your top-ranking competitors. All you need to do is go to their site and look at their meta tags. Keyword research is a constant and has been and still is a linchpin of SEO. Do it first before creating any content!
It’s simple. Gaining High-quality backlinks is the cornerstone of SEO. “How do I do that” I hear you scream. Well, think of it more as a relationship-building exercise. You need to start thinking of link-building more in terms of relationship-building. You need to build a strong relationship with as many relevant people as possible. Tools like Followerwonk and Buzz Sumo will help you find relevant people.
Quality blogs and quality content are so important. There are hundreds of studies suggesting that Google (and search engines in general) are more and more interested in long-form content of over 1200 words or so and tend to rank it highly. So with longer, higher quality pieces, you can offer better results for searchers. To reward you, Google will rank you higher than shorter articles or pieces of content.
In addition to ranking better in SERPs ranking higher, longer blog posts also tend to receive more shares and likes on Facebook, Retweets on Twitter as well as other social signals.
Google’s algorithm is starting to take these signals into account more and more when considering rankings. While this is not exactly what they are saying there are loads of studies to show that this is the case. See an example of one of those studies and the rating in the results. This will of course increase the chances of someone actually clicking into your site as opposed to someone else. This is something our development team has done for many clients and we are seeing the benefits more and more.
We are seeing with our clients that over 55% of searches are now being done on mobile devices and a great deal of this is for local searches. If you’re an SME or locally driven business, local SEO is key. It’s as simple as setting up your Google Business Page and building the right content on your site. Local SEO makes a difference and can deliver massively for a site locally if done correctly. With upcoming algorithmic updates to local search and it becoming more vital, focusing on it as part of an SEM strategy will be a necessity for a lot of businesses. All of these factors are in the daily life of an SEO Specialist, so maybe you need to consider them in your search marketing campaign. If you have any questions or need help implementing any of the above, do feel free to contact us.
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