Effective SEO Techniques That You Should Be Implementing Now
Search engine optimization (SEO) has been used to promote blogs and websites for years now. If this is new to you, SEO is the process of making your website more search engine-friendly so that it appears at the top of a search engine result page (SERPs).
SEO does not exist in a vacuum; it continues to evolve as Google and other search engines counter the abuse brought about by the loopholes in the process. What worked before may not be as effective now.
In this article, we present three things that you should be doing to help boost your SEO efforts. These steps are so simple that you can easily do them yourself. As for the more complicated steps, you can opt to hire an SEO company to assist you. Learn more about them here.
Write for people, not search engines
In the past, content creators would fill their work with keywords to make the search engines believe that the text is really about the target keyword. The algorithms used by Google and other search engines were not very nuanced yet; as long as they were able to detect the presence of a keyword numerous times in the text, it was deemed relevant to that keyword.
However, this simple assessment process does not apply now. Algorithms have become more sophisticated, and the presence of a keyword alone is not enough to convey relevance. The article has to contain other words that are naturally relevant to the main keyword. For example, if the article is about ‘Nike basketball shoes,’ then it must also contain words such as ‘traction,’ ‘sole,’ ‘court,’ and other terms that a person discussing shoes will naturally mention.
While one might think that this makes the content creation process more complicated, it actually doesn’t. In fact, this new rule makes the whole process much easier. Now, you can just use a keyword once or twice and continue to write naturally. Finally, you can talk to your audience, not the search engine.
Build quality links
You are considered an authority in your field when people refer to you for guidance or look up to your content as reliable. This reverence is cemented by multiple links to your pages from their websites.
Now, simple logic dictates that authority can be easily enhanced by distributing backlinks indiscriminately. This strategy might have worked well in the past, but the same can not be said now. Links are still valuable, but it is the quality and not the quantity of the links that matters more. Backlinks from a reliable website such as CNN.com is going to be a lot better than hundreds of links on directory sites and other pages that are not relevant to your topic.
Promote on social media
No matter how simple or complex your SEO methods are, at the end of the day you just want to get noticed by your target market. As a result, you have to pay attention to your social media profiles. People spend a great deal of time interacting with each other on social media platforms. Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter are just some of the most popular choices. If you establish a considerable presence on these platforms, you are making yourself more accessible to real people, which puts you in a better position to promote your brand and encourage engagement.
The SEO process is constantly changing. Due to this evolution, many steps that once worked well have become obsolete. As a practitioner, it’s important that you always keep yourself updated with the latest trends.