If you have ever run a website, you would have heard the term SEO. You know that search engine optimization (or SEO for short) is a valuable process for getting more (and relevant) traffic to your site. But to get that hallowed top spot in search results, especially in Google can be something of a challenge.
Even if you do everything right today, there is nothing to stop search engines from changing their criteria tomorrow. It would be alright if they told us exactly what they are changing, but what search engines look for tends to be a closely guarded secret.
At best, you are usually told to focus on creating high-quality content. But to find out what the specific criteria are, you have to work it out for yourself through trial and error. And this is the job of the SEO Freelancer!
In this post, we will go through some of the basics to start with.
If you feel that you are ready to give it a quick try, here are some tips to get you started.
Start With Quality Content
The internet started out with very little content, the reverse is now the case. There is too much content! The quality is very variable and it stands to reason that the single biggest SEO TIP is to create good quality content. But what exactly is good quality content? The devil is in the detail.
Search engines now have sophisticated AI systems in place that can check for things as basic as typos but more excitingly now AI can see if you are actually getting what you need or enjoy out of the content. They can see if you return and search again for the same thing..user was not satisfied. Google amasses data on all its indexed URLs which is a modern example of Big Data.
These AI systems can also detect if you are gaming them. Bot traffic could for example hit a page over and over and show a bounce which is a bad indicator of a piece of content. AI has to know the difference between bot traffic and human traffic.
It will look at not only how many people access the content, but also how long they stay on the site. If they bounce off soon after landing, that is seen as an indication that either the content was not relevant or not of good quality.
Neither serves you well. You need to get people to stay on your site and read the content. That means upping your game when it comes to creating it.
Reviews Are Important
Good reviews can help your site rank more highly, so wherever possible, encourage clients to leave reviews for you. Make it as simple as possible by providing links to your Google review page, Facebook page, etc.
Reviews help you with one of the more recent updates to the Google algorithm the helpful content update.
Updated Content
How fresh a site is may affect how well it does in search engine results. When we say fresh we do not mean new, but rather how up-to-date it is. Consider having your blog as part of your site so that when your blog is updated, your site also gets a freshness boost.
Follow Industry Leaders
SEO is constantly changing and so your best chance of keeping up is to keep an eye on what the industry leaders are saying. Neil Patel, Brian Dean, and Larry Kim are just a few of the ones to follow online. For more ideas, see the infographic provided.
Our best piece of advice? Always put out the best possible product to stand a great chance of getting the best results. There are ways to cheat in this area, but it won't work for very long. Nothing beats quality content for long-term gain.