Search Engine Optimization or SEO (APLUSDIGITAL.CA) as it is commonly referred to is a process to optimize your website. The optimization helps to make the website more discoverable and accessible to search engines.
SEO: Why is it Important?
Every website is created with some sense of expectation. This expectation can range from attracting traffic, building a brand, promotions or publicity, getting leads, or making sales.
However, before we set our expectations, websites need to follow a guideline from search engines. These guidelines can be interpreted as best practices.
According to search engines, websites, which fulfill the guidelines and best practices, are the ones that will be most searched by users.
Search engines are platforms that help users with information on the best websites. The better the information and its relevance, the better is the search ranking.
According to Moz, over 90% of all searches do not proceed beyond the first page of Google. This means that if your brand is on the second page, you stand to lose 90% traffic on the web.
This is a significant figure, which has implications on revenues, health, and even the future of any business.
Top 6 SEO Tricks: The List
In this section, we will look at some of the top tricks to increase Search Rankings for websites. This list has been compiled after talking to some of the biggest experts in the digital marketing industry.
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Do Aggressive Blogger Outreach
If you want to see a rapid and meteoric increase in your search rankings, blogger outreach should be part of your SEO strategy. By reaching to industry-specific bloggers of high metric websites, you can try to establish a relationship.
This will ensure that the blogger will place your brand’s content on his website, with a backlink to yours. This will help you gain access to the traffic of the blogger. If your content is of high quality, you can expect people to click on the link and go to your website.
Blogger Outreach is a highly specialized digital marketing strategy. Not every SEO services agency can provide blogger outreach service. Link building through blogger outreach is a sure and time tested strategy that the best SEO services agencies employ for their clients.
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Optimise the Page Loading Speed of the Website
According to Quicksprout, 40% of all website visitors leave the website if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load. Optimising the page speed falls under the purview of On-Page SEO Optimization techniques.
If you want to increase the page loading speed of the website you need to check for images and videos that have not been compressed on optimized. You need to also ensure that the database work (if any) on your website is done in a language that is Framework-Based.
This keeps the length of the code to a minimum. Another way to increase website speed is to choose a dedicated hosting platform. Shared platforms are cheaper, but they compromise on many important attributes. A dedicated hosting platform can ensure lightning fast speeds, back-ups and security.
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The Google Ecosystem (GMB + YouTube + Google Search)
If you want to ace the search rankings of Google, you need to be active on all the above three platforms simultaneously. Google My Business (GMB) is critical when it comes to Local SEO.
YouTube presents a host of video marketing opportunities that can be driven by the same keywords that you want to rank for.
By choosing titles with keywords, including keywords in the description section, Google can make your keywords rank if they are popular and see a lot of traffic.
The Google Ecosystem should always be targeted in a strategic manner. Video is the future of digital marketing. The same content needs to be popularized on text and video formats.
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Create Quality and Original Content based on Keyword Research
You might think that this point is probably the easiest thing to pull off on the list. You could not be further away from the truth. Creating SEO friendly content that is original, informative and keyword optimized is an art.
If you want to rank for keywords, your content creation needs to be great from every parameter. We are not talking about just textual content. Creating content means supplementing it with relevant images, videos, infographics and statistics.
The more rich your content is, the better chances of it ranking on search engines. The biggest mistake that most brands and digital agencies make is skimming on the content creation part.
However, if you look at the best websites that rank, and see their content, you will see the importance and emphasis they lay on the content creation part.
With the growing popularity of SEO, it’s important not only to have an attractive website but to have meaningful content which truly represents you” says Navneet Kaushal, CEO of PageTraffic SEO Company.
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Mobile Optimization and Responsiveness
In 2018, Google made a landmark announcement. It stated that over the course of the next few months, it is going to index mobile versions of websites first. This announcement was expected, as over 60% of all searches happen on cell phones.
If your site is not optimized for mobile, you will never be able to excel at search rankings. Google recognizes and flags sites that are not mobile responsive or skim contents between their desktop versions and mobile versions.
Optimizing for mobile versions involves seeing whether your desktop design and mobile design are exactly similar. In terms of content, UI and UX, the mobile version of the website needs to match the desktop version. This is a high priority search ranking parameter for Google.
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Promote Social Media Sharing
The digital is an inter-related and inter-dependent eco-system. You cannot afford to create amazing articles for your blog and not share them on social media pages. Sharing your website content on social media helps you reach a different but related audience.
Every click from social media that leads to your website is a thumbs up from Google and the social media platform in question. It shows them that the content is engaging more and more users on social media. This is why they are clinking on the link and going to an external source.
Social media gives a huge boost to website traffic. The better the website traffic, the higher is Google going to rank your website. This is why amplification on social media for your website content is necessary for every brand. If you are not using social media marketing to the fullest, you are limiting your reach and growth.
Conclusion
While some SEO services might tell you that you need at least a year to see substantial results, I feel that a good and robust strategy will start yielding results in three months.
In 2020, SEO means integrating traditional optimizations with innovative digital marketing strategies. The use of Video Marketing and Voice Search Marketing is going to define the future of search engine marketing.
While SEO might seem like a straightforward plan of action, in most cases it is not so. This is because SEO is highly competitive between brands who are competing in the same industry. The crux of SEO is always outperforming someone else and taking their spot on the rankings. This is why an SEO strategy keeps ongoing. You not only have to take someone’s ranking, but you also have to ensure that no one is catching up with you. This is why it is best to consult with an SEO agency.
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