SEO, which of course refers to Search Engine Optimization is the process in which a website can attain growth through organic, unpaid means. While having the right algorithms and tools count, the thing is that the search engines and their algorithms have become more complex and sophisticated and as a result, tried and tested methods which might have worked before will no longer cut it anymore. Cut throat competition and financial crunches have forced many businesses to up their game or simply abandon ship.
IS THERE A SILVER LINING TO IT?
As every adversity comes with an opportunity to learn and enhance something, the toughened world of SEO has provided an insight as to how the world will operate in a post pandemic and post recession landscape. By using available tools and creating fine, appropriate content, it is possible to let SEO win it big for businesses.
IS THERE ANYTHING LIKE EASY SEO WINS?
Turns out, all that needs to be done is to be consistent and original. Plus a bit more, like:
- Google has a search experience called Featured Snippets which come up at the first organic search as they have the prepositions of what, why, how, when, where before their queries. As such, they take up the top tier of the search engine space and generate tables, lists and paragraphs. How do you get the snippets to work for the site? By presenting data in structured form, writing shorter sentences and structuring heading hierarchies it is possible to generate snippets.
- The use of voice powered searches with the help of BERT, which is a technique for natural language processing. This spurs the local searches and long tail keyword searches that really narrow down the search.
- Creating quality content that covers an area greater than the keyword phrase which include surveys and studies. This will definitely grab the attention of bloggers and industry experts.
- Creating content with appropriate length as it will give a better search engine ranking as well as clustering the content like a wheel-spoke model, i.e., placing the content pieces around the topic will help the search engine get to the heart of the matter efficiently.
- Creating video content as it is bound to get more viewers than traditional word content. Platforms such as youtube are brilliant for this aspect.
- Focussing on local SEO as more and more searches look for local intentions. Going local has a lot of benefits, like boosting the local economy and keeping up to date with local businesses and their contact details. If you check and follow Google Reviews, you will understand what it means (for example, the “Near Me” option).
- Hiring influencers is a very effective way to boost local searches as influencers themselves have millions of followers, who are mostly local. They will talk in depth about the products with their stories and posts which will help get the backlinks for businesses. And even without backlinks, the page will rank very high on Google search.
- Google itself has tools that filter out low quality content to safeguard the online presence of local businesses
THAT’S ALL EXACTLY WELL AND GOOD, BUT HOW DOES ONE WIN AT SEO?
With so many rules and trends to follow, they are tough decisions to make for a small business or a startup to gain more traffic for their site. A few helpful points would be to be :
- Brave but realistic – setting achievable and realistic SEO goals will diminish a lot of the forecasting headache. Be bold enough to experiment and learn from changes but don’t slack it.
- Measure your achievements – the use of Google Analytics tools to measure the amount of traffic to the site and to see the amount of time the visitors spend on the site is crucial to how successful your SEO implementation is. Doing more research into content marketing will aid your goals.
- Don’t worry – about site crawlers (reports which show Google’s monitoring history on your site about server responses, requests and availability) as they are much inclined towards bigger organizations with greater traffic.
- Use auditing tools to gauge user experience – UX or User experience is an important factor for SEO as poor site navigation, incompatibilities and outdated softwares can ruin whatever hard work has been done. Using software like Hotjar and Google Analytics Funnel will help the site understand visitor behavior and making the UI (User Interface) more mobile friendly will generate more traffic.
- Be up to date with onsite optimization – using the correct keyword phrases,especially long-tail keywords (specifying the thing being looked like, blue color Wimbledon T-Shirts) fitting content structure with the H1 and H2 (headings 1 and 2) tags being optimized with metadata that encourages more clicks leading to greater call to action.
- Protect your reputation– building your brand or website takes tons of brand awareness. Watch out for any nasty press, rectify anything that has gone amiss and make sure the site’s links to the social media sites are intact. Again, metadata created by the site aid in describing the nature of the site, e.g., the products sold or services offered. Google Search is an excellent way to see how the site fares compared to other competitors.
- Use the full power of the Influencer – people like what is understandable and easy for them. Using backlinks (in terms of social media, they are the #hashtags and @mentions that link to other sites) guarantees more traffic for the site.
- Use visually appealing content – it is no secret that a video will garner more attention from visitors than simple text. Using appropriately curated videos trumps hundreds of pages of written content and it is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. But in contrast, having written content that numbers over 1000 words marks it as an evergreen, authoritative content that uses LSI keywords (LSI refers to Latent Semantic Indexing which is a system search engines use with other words people use in relation to a given topic. Think of it as a high-end keyword phrase, but with no cost involved)
Using these tips and techniques in 2021 will ensure you can milk out the maximum potential from your site. Here’s to a prosperous year with SEO in full swing