It is not hidden that, updating SEO algorithms is what Google loves to do. You won’t be surprised if someday Google makes around 100 changes in the search algorithms.
SEO simply means optimizing your content such that it gains more visibility and is seen more often in the SERPs.
Having many updates and changes in the search engine algorithms, you are very likely to miss something. And in such an intense competition scenario, missing out even a single bit may lead you to serious consequences and loss of content visibility too.
Once you are on point, you enjoy a higher traffic leading to more conversions, leads and sales boost.
Over the past few years, ranking factors have changed substantially. The techniques which were in trend 5 years ago, have become obsolete today.
Every firm wants, high traffic, leads and sales, isn’t it? That is exactly what we understand and we have crafted 20 brand new tips to boost your SEO game. Have a look:
1. A new update, BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers)
BERT update came around late December 2019, this update had a negative impact on many of the websites. This update will primarily focus on the quality of the content. It will also focus on intent and keyword-content relevancy.
Many SEO Experts are of the opinion that, the overall reputation of the website is checked by Google using Your Money Your Life(YMYL) and Expertise – Authoritative – Trustworthiness (E-A-T).
1. Rebuild the First Page Posts
Andy Crestodina (co-founder & CMO) of Orbit Media suggests, to look out for posts that has ranked high and recreate them. These posts can be easily found in your Google Analytics. Once you have these posts found, Rebuild them. Add a few stats, answers, findings, quotes, images, gifs, etc to make it more attractive.
1. Go for Featured Snippets
A featured snippet is something that results before a ranked result and after an ad on the SERPs. Featured snippets generally have videos, images or a table alongside, which are more likely to grab attention and steal a few clicks from the results which may have a higher rank. Featured snippets only accounts about a little more than 11% of the overall search results. This is how a featured snippet looks like:
It looks neat, isn’t it? So now the question is how to have a content optimized for a featured snippet? Follow these tips:
- Use headers, so that scanning becomes easy for the search engine crawlers.
- Be very clear and concise with your content.
- Use of strong external resources will help.
- Retain your social engagement.
- Assure usability of cross – devices.
1. Focus on E-A-T
An acronym E-A-T has been abuzz in the SEO industry. What does it stand for?
Well, it is Expertise – Authority – Trustworthiness. Search engine don’t want to consider only good content or false content, which may not be useful to a user.
For instance, a user is searching for a medicine. Your page ranks high because your page has all that what it requires to rank high in the search engine results page, but your content about that medicine is incorrect and you suggest some other medicine to your user through the post. Now, imagine the problem that the potential user may face. It is really bad, don’t you think so?
You may have often seen websites related to finance and medical health have problems ranking high. The primary issue is that they may have content which is incorrect and inaccurate. Thus Google wants websites to establish Expertise – Authority – Trustworthiness.
1. Create Authoritative, Informative and Evergreen Content
Posts content with a view to provide information to the user. User has clicked on your website to know the details of a certain topic. Create in-depth and long-form contents so that a user can have a complete understanding on the topic.
To outperform other players you need to provide contents which are evergreen and people will share it willingly. However, many contents on the web gets ignored but contents which are very authoritative, informational and are created by carrying out a proper and in-depth research gains benefits.
2 Enormous ways to create authoritative, informational and evergreen content are:
- Focus on creating long form content: A content of about 2000 words with proper detailing and authoritative information is more likely to gain more visibility and is considered by the search engine crawlers over smaller ones.
- Make maximum use of LSI Keywords: The keywords which complement or go with your content will help you get more traffic.
1.Aim to Provide Relevant Data
Keyword stuffing in content is not beneficial. Keyword stuffing in your content will not gain you ranks. It is to be noted that, search engines are primarily focusing on delivering the right information to the users. Thus focusing on details and providing precise and accurate data will gain you an extra edge.
1.Article Length Optimization
Gone are the days where people had a belief that the more words you write the more engagement and traffic you will get. The scenario is different today, it all boils down to how your content provides answers to users questions and how informative content you deliver.
As we mentioned earlier, having an article of about 2000 words will be sufficient. So just to reach the mark of 2000 words, don’t just make your content an overflowing one.
Take the help of your analytics, check which content have generated more traffic, lead to maximum conversions, has the highest of the reading times, apply the inputs gathered from there and monitor results thereafter.
1.Add Links of the Previous Content
Getting backlinks to your post is the best way to get a higher rank in the SERPs. Exceptional content gets a good amount of internal as well as external links. To generate more traffic, add links of your older posts to the newer ones, without failing. Such a step, will help users find your recent and the best posts.
To increase the credibility of your website, provide external links to websites which are highly reputable. High chances of you getting higher rankings, if you have better links on your website. In addition to this, use credible sources in content, which will help build a sense of trust in your users.
Carry out a Title Tag Split
This simply means carrying out a test and understanding what kind of title tag may get you more traffic. You will be surprised to know that SEO experts in some countries have not heard of it yet, while many of them are not carrying out a title tag split testing. Only few experts do perform this test.
The benefit that you will enjoy after doing this test and working on the results found is immense.
Here are some facts that might enable you to do a title tag split test:
- The most no. of clicks are grabbed by the title tags having a character range from 15 to 40.
- 14.1% clicks are taken by title tags having a question mark included.
- Depicting emotions in your title tag can get you more clicks. About 7% clicks are generated by the title tags showing positive and negative emotions.
And if you really want to boost your rankings, here’s something which is simple to adopt, Just add the year in your meta tag and check your CTR increase. Just have a look of how it can be used:
1. Create Content in Multi Languages:
Ranking sites of english content, search engines have a huge no. of choices to choose from. But sites with other languages lack behind having a good quality content in different languages.
If you are aiming to conquer the entire globe, apply this strategy, watch out when and where your sites have been clicked, create content in that languages too. Tap on the potential regions and deliver content in their local languages. This is will lead your traffics to new heights.
1.Entity Based Search
Local search is the limelight of entity based search. Local entities are ranked higher in the SERPs even if they don’t have a website, because they are searched with a particular entity. It has been noticed that, Google is looking out to encompass information related to entity in search results through augmentation queries. So, keep an eye as in what is going around in the search industry. Consider your entity based searching accordingly.
1.Enhance your Page Speed
How many SEO Experts consider the page speed while optimizing a website? Not many of them.
The speed at which your page loads, is a key ranking factor. The content that you posted is of no use if your page speed is very slow or the user interface is tricky. It may even lead to an increase in bounce rate. Watch out for your page speed, or else you will lose your users.
1.Keep an eye on User Experience (UX)
You must have heard, the biggest of the companies exist and thrive only by maintaining a long-term relations with their customers. The better experience you provide the better are the changes of you to rank high. Because the customer who enjoy a better experience tends to spend more time on your website.
To provide a better customer experience to your users, you need to think from the customer’s point of view to understand what the user likes or dislikes. Be simple and do not use words which may put your user in a confusing state. Be clear and concise while answering messages or else you will end up increasing your bounce rate which will ultimately affects your rankings.
1.Give Importance to Technical SEO
Keep the basics in mind, don’t ignore the technical aspects of the SEO. If you over see this technical aspects, you are going to harm your own website. Check out the page speed, bounce rate, optimize your website accordingly. As discussed earlier, create an engaging user interface and user experience. Keep the website design in mind while creating a new website design.
1. Digital Experience is what People will prefer
44% companies follow the approach – Digital first and 56% CEO’s have said that the digital first approach has led to higher revenue.
People will prefer a good digital experience because, it has been observed that the digital platforms has provided a way in which users tend to engage daily and most of times in a day.
Create a proper interface and provide them with a fabulous experience, you are more likely to rank higher.
1.Structured Data
In 2020, quality content will be in the forefront, as far as ranking is concerned. However, search engine algorithms does not understand the context fully. So what we can do is provide the search engines with a “clue”, so that the search engine will understand the context and provides the user with the information in the context of the user. This is called structured data, where in the search engine understands the how each elements are related to the intent that the user is looking for.
1.Video Content is going to be the King
Video content is considered to be the king in 2020, but digital marketers are failing to make use of it. Get rid of blogs posts having low word count and aim to have a video instead. Video marketing may help you achieve a good user engagement.
A user may not read a 150 word article but can definitely go through a 1minute video. “By 2021, online video marketing is going to take 80% share of the online traffic generated” says Cisco.
It’s high time, make most of video marketing to rank higher.
1. Mobile SEO should be the Focal Point
Mobile SEO is considered to be an important factor in 2020 as far as ranking is concerned. The reason being, every person visiting us in our shop has a mobile phone. If you fail to have a mobile site, your desktop website will still be used by people, but at the cost of your rankings. Build a mobile site and optimize it as well.
1.Voice Search Optimization
Voice search became more significant in 2018. The trend of voice search is going to continue as it is very easy to access.
Make use of geo-targeted keywords, it is going to make sense and build your brand. Most of the voice searches are done for local searches and thus geo-targeted keywords are going to earn you more traffic.
1.Improve User Engagement
Many experts are of the view, to increase your traffic invest more in user engagement. Right from creating posts and delivering them, the aim should be to gain user engagement.
The tips to keep in mind to enhance user engagement:
- Be very simple and easy to read and understand.
- Make use of LSI keywords.
- Include ways in which users can absorb the content.
- Include a nice set of offers and links on the page.
When you start believing that you are completely understanding search engine optimization, A new update comes in. To succeed in SEO follow the above tips and keep up with the latest trends.
