Did you know it is the first five search results that appear on Google that make up more than half of all the clicks when an individual is searching for a particular thing?
With these top results getting 67% of the share of clicks, your blog post is practically useless if it appears anywhere other than the first page of Google search results.
Fortunately, with excellent SEO practices, you can now have the visibility you desire in front of your target audience – and that too, in an organic way.
However, with SEO techniques becoming rampant in the modern age, you have to keep improving yourself to get to the top continually. Here are 7 easy tips to managing your SEO strategy to make sure that it is a success.
Get professional help
Whether it is issuing a drunk driver for crashing into your yard and damaging your property or a regular trip to Sephora to see which foundation suits your skin tone the most – getting professionals to help you out can change the results you are likely to get. Same is the case with Search Engine Optimization.
Employing a competent professional search engine marketing agency is the one thing that will change your SEO game the most drastically.
Having someone on the team who knows all the ins and outs of SEO rather than getting your interns to take care of the complicated job is the best thing that you can do to get yourself listed as a top result on Google.
These people know all the tips and tricks regarding how to alter different aspects of your piece to make sure it gets a sweet little spot right on the top of the first page.
Not only can they do the job better than your in house amateurs, but they also relieve you of extra stress and burden.
You can now focus on the non-marketing ventures of your business that are getting overlooked when you were too busy worrying about your search result ranking.
However, the best thing about getting a specialized agency to do the job is that these will probably not cost you an arm and a leg. You get better results in minimal costs – maybe something even less than what you were paying yours in house employees!
It all starts with the right keywords
SEO is all about identifying the right keywords and key phrases and then using them naturally and helpfully in your content in such a way that they add value to it.
When most people think of keywords, they think these are the words that they have to use the most throughout the article. However, the reality is very different. Forcing keywords that do not relate to the content in your article can damage your ranking rather than enhance it!
This is why you need to be smart while doing keyword research and choosing the frequency by which the keyword appears in your article. Read up guides on proper keyword usage to make your SEO count.
Content is king
Bill Gates said this way back in 1996, but it is still as relevant as ever! Quality content is the key to climbing the SEO ladder and stay on the top.
You must make sure that your content adds value to the reader’s life, and contains exactly the information that the reader clicked onto your link for.
This is why it is essential to be careful when hiring content writers. The right content writer will understand what the user is looking for when he searches for a particular keyword, and design the article around it.
Since Google is forever striving to give its users the best experience ever, it will never bump you up to the top if you do not make the reader your center of attention.
Dress up your Meta description
So, let’s say you made it to the top. Your content is excellent, and you used the right keyword, just the right amount of times. You are happily occupying one of the topmost positions when Google spews back the results to the relevant keywords.
What is the one thing that can still cause the user to click on your competition’s link rather than yours?
Of course, your Meta description!
This is the small excerpt that gives the user a glimpse into what the article is about before he clicks on it. This 160 character paragraph may as well be the most important of the entirety of your 1000+ words article.
Optimize your Meta description to tempt the user into clicking on your link. It is only if this tiny part appeals to the user that he will go through the trouble of checking you out – directly raising your website traffic and your conversion rates.
Cater to smartphone users
Not making your website, mobile-friendly, is probably one of the gravest SEO mistakes anyone could make.
We all know how widespread mobile phone usage is today. Every child, adult, and elderly own a smartphone in this era and is continually clicking away on it.
A majority of the population’s internet usage is entirely on their mobile phone. In this environment, how could you get away with not making the extra effort to ensure your website runs on the mobile?
One of the 200+ factors that determine your ranking on Google’s search result is how accessible your website is.
This showcases the number of people who can open and be helped by the content that you are putting out. Making your site mobile-friendly is one of the surest ways to reach more people and improve your SEO ranking.
Speed up your loading time
Have you ever visited a slow loading website only to be exasperated and close it to find a different one that does not waste as much time? Well, so has your target audience.
A website that does not load immediately is one of the most frustrating things to encounter – especially when you are in a hurry.
With the fast-paced lifestyle that most of us are leading today, this has become even more of a bother than ever before. But it is not only the people who do not like this, but Google also hates it too!
If your website is slow to load, it will doubtlessly be pushed down by Google’s ranking algorithm. Then, you can kiss goodbye to your dream of being a leading search result. For your SEO techniques to be effective, you need to respect people’s impatience and pay extra attention to fast loading times.
Make sure your connection is a secure one
Last but not least, paying due regard to the general internet user’s rightful paranoia of being hacked is another thing that you can do to improve your ranking.
In this era of advancing technology, you cannot be too careful of avoiding hackers and being cautious of getting your data stolen. This is why nobody likes to visit a website that is not secured by https.
Securing your server does not only make you appear more trustworthy and encourages your visitors to do with you, but it also elevates you in the eyes of Google’s algorithm for ranking in the search result. Practicing this little thing can make a real difference to your ranking on any search engine.
The final word
In a world that is continuously advancing – in terms of technology and otherwise – you also need to keep updating to stay relevant in every age.
These days, having an efficient SEO strategy has become a necessity rather than a proactive measure to improve your website traffic. Just investing in the run of the mill SEO is not enough anymore.
You now have to be smarter about your marketing techniques and employ many overlooked tactics to be considered a feisty competition.