When it comes to SEO, it’s very important that you’re familiar with the latest best practices, especially if you want to stay one step ahead of the competition. As new technology is introduced, this naturally has a progressive impact on digital marketing, resulting in new methods and techniques. While, on the surface, the various strategies and methods of SEO aren’t complicated, if you want to stand out amongst the competition, and rank higher within the major search engines, then you will need to keep up with all the latest changes in the field of SEO.
Even the most knowledgeable people on SEO spend a significant amount of time trying to find new ways of improving their understanding of the field so that they can rank sites higher within the search engines. New changes within the SEO industry are happening on a constant basis, which means, if you ensure you’re always up-to-date with these new changes and additions, then you can rest assured that you’ll be in the best position to beat the competition.
To help you get up to speed with the latest practices in SEO, let’s take some time to look at the must-haves of search engine optimization today.
1. Optimise Your Meta Titles and Descriptions
Meta tags since SEO’s inception, have always played a role. However, the keyword tag has become less and less relevant over time, with more emphasises placed on titles and descriptions. In truth, it’s these two elements that the visitor will see, when they find your page in the search engine results page.
Take some time to search for a company in Google. Then look at both the title and the description of the page you find in the results page. There is a strong chance that it was taken from the pages Meta title and description.
Fine-tuning your Meta tags is good for two reasons, the first, is that it improves your click through rate in the search engines, as you’re able to create more relatable titles, and the second is that it tells the search engines exactly what the page is all about.
Make sure your titles are catchy with descriptions that tell the visitor a little about the content. This will improve the amounts of clicks you receive through the search engines, while letting the search engine know what to rank your content on. But, writing titles can be the trickiest part of creating content. To make sure that you’re able to create effective titles that attract readers while also conveying the idea of your content you need to have a comprehensive understanding of copywriting tips.
Some experts also recommend that you include your primary keyword within the Meta description, as this will further optimise the content, for it.
2. Website Security
Are you aware that the security of your site also affects its ranking in the search engines? Google, for example, likes to prioritize those websites that offer a safe browsing experience, over those that do not. If there’s a potential for your site to be unsafe, then it will be flagged, which will act as a deterrent for any would-be visitor.
One of the most effective ways of securing your site is by using Hyper Test Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS, as it is most commonly known by. A site that is secured by HTTPS will feature that, just before the domain name. To acquire this specific kind of site security, you will need a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate. It’s what creates the secure link between the visitor’s browser and the site.
Implementing a SSL certificate is a relatively advanced process, which is best left up to professionals – which you can pay for. In the end, it’s definitely well worth it.
3. Featured Snippets
As part of your marketing strategy featured snippets should be something you’re aiming to achieve, for a large number of your pages. Why? Because featured snippets appear right at the top of the search engine results pages, in the form of text accompanied with an image. Google uses these featured snippets to answer the question to a query. This is highly beneficial to organic search, as these snippets receive more attention and clicks from visitors. Through featured snippets it is possible to pull a significant amount of traffic to your site.
Below you will find a list of tips that you can and should use to acquire featured snippets:
Make sure your paragraphs are optimised to no more than 200 – 300 words.
The primary keyword of your site should be laser focused to the content of the page.
Analyse what your competition is doing, look at how they structure their content and look to emulate.
Another clever way of getting a featured snippet is by adding a Q & A section on your page.
4. Focus on the Mobile Experience
More than 50% of all web traffic comes directly from mobile devices. This means, you can predict that around 50% of all visitors to your site are viewing directly from a tablet or smartphone. It’s for this reason why you want to focus on having a mobile friendly device.
Mobile engagement has become so important over the years that it has become a ranking signal of the Google search engine. This means, if your site is not mobile-friendly, it can have an adverse effect on your sites rankings.
Your sites layout isn’t the only thing you will need to think about. Voice search is another thing for you to consider optimising for, as more and more people use it. Around 45% of all consumers use some form of voice search every day.
To properly optimise for voice search you’re looking at using shorter sentences and paragraphs, and making your content easier to read on smaller devices. Buttons that you can interact with enhances user experience, and going with a font face that is easier to read, even on the smallest of screens is important.
Focus on optimising for mobile, as this should coincide with your optimising it for desktop view. Things like layout, image size and site speed benefit all users, irrespective of how they view your page.
5. Link Your Content Together Internally
Acquiring backlinks is not the only form of connection for you to consider. Linking all your sites content internally is equally as important, as it lets the search engines know how your sites content relates with one another.
Just like your backlinks, your internal linking structure must make sense, meaning, all links must be relevant. When linking to another page on your site, you have to consider whether or not it makes sense to link to it.
Any internal link that you create should be viewed as a way of expanding on the current pages content. Like providing additional info on a topic, in the event that the user would like to expand their knowledge on that specific topic.
When creating your internal links, be sure not to go overboard. Having too many internal links on a page can hurt its SEO performance. If you’d like more links going to a specific page on your site, then you’ll need to create more relatable articles and link to it from them.
Consider things from the perspective of the reader, just to ensure everything is making sense. If it’s confusing to the reader, then it’s going to confuse the search engine bots too. Which, could end up hurting the site.
Author Bio:
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website compuchenna
