You don’t need in-depth technical knowledge to master the basics of SEO. If you have patience and a little background knowledge, you can get yourself a good share of organic search. If you’re a writer, blogger, or a marketer, it’s important that you know a few SEO tactics. Why? Because SEO is about selling – selling your content, product, service, or even your point of view.

Even the SEO masters of our time started with these basic tips. Sure, it won’t make you an SEO guru overnight, but it will jumpstart a new skill that can seriously profit your business.

Create fresh content

A lot of website owners who know nothing but SEO neglect their content. And so far, this is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make when optimizing. Quality content is at the top of Google’s ranking list. This is the reason why many website owners are willing to spend good money just to have someone write unique and valuable content for them.

When you produce fresh content on a regular basis, Google will know that your website is active. You’ll have a better shot at SERPs if that’s the case.

Practice link building

Once you have good content, the next thing you’ll have to do is to get links. Why? Because links remain one of Google’s top ranking factor. If your site gets links from high authority sites, crawlers will perceive your site as trustworthy. However, it’s not just about picking links and spreading it all over your pages. It should be relevant to your content. Getting links isn’t easy, but it’s well worth the effort.

Create stunning headlines

Your headline sets the first impression to your readers. If you are a blogger or someone selling a product, the headline will be your first chance to attract the attention of your potential customer. The meta description comes next. This is the short snippet you’ll see under every result in the SERP. It should contain just enough information to tease users to click on your page. Although the meta description isn’t a ranking factor, it has a very important purpose: it should attract your target audience.

Improve the user experience

Your website will only appeal to readers if it’s engaging, both content-wise and visually. Always make sure that your website responds well on mobile devices. As you know, the majority of internet users are browsing using their smartphone and other mobile devices.

You can start by making your content relevant to what the readers are looking for. Also, don’t write in long paragraphs and always keep the tone conversational. The design of your website is another thing. But even if you have stunning graphics, it’s nothing without proper content.

These few SEO strategies are just basic methods. Still, these are cornerstones of the search engine optimization practice. If you follow the advice here, you can make a good start on your site’s SEO. The next step will then be to higher experts to take things to the next level.  

Gone are the days when each page is optimized using a single keyword alone.  As SEO methods evolved, the approach to optimization has gone beyond the usual one-keyword, one-page concept. But the question is this: how can you do this efficiently? The answer: you start with the niche keywords.

How to find niche keywords

Optimizing two or more keywords in one page doesn’t always mean you have to use a synonym of the other. You should use LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords related to your niche or specific topic. Try entering a query on the search engine and you’ll see “related searches” or the “people also ask” spot.

For example, when I searched for the keyword “how to optimize keywords”, I will find the LSI keywords like “how do I target keywords in SEO” and “how do you optimize your content for search”.

As you see, these aren’t synonyms but related phrases on your main keyword. By using these same queries that people also ask, you can craft your page to be a well-optimized spot on the web.

Analyzing the keywords

Finding the keyword is just the first step here. After you’ve gathered a few key phrases, it’s time to check its competition, search volume, and the like. You’d want a keyword that has promising search volume yet very low competition. This means that more people are searching for the topic but only a few are optimizing for it.

Using the keywords

If your website is hosted in WordPress, you’re probably using Yoast SEO to optimize the keywords. However, you would have to pay for a premium account to enter multiple phrases. Take note that plugins like these are just guidelines and you have the freedom to use multiple keywords even without a premium version.

As a rule of thumb, use the keywords on the meta description, headings tags, and in strategic spots within your content. Make it look as natural as possible so your readers will still enjoy perusing your content without finding awkward sentences.

Monitoring your campaign

While your team is churning the fresh content with your new keywords, you can add the keywords to your campaign. You can use the likes of Moz Pro to do this. Once the articles are published and gaining traction online, you can easily see the ranking of your content based on the multiple keywords you’ve used.

Why optimize with multiple keywords?

After reading the aforementioned tips, you wonder, why is there a need to optimize using multiple keywords in one page? First, a one-keyword one-page scheme might produce thin content as the writers will be limited to a single phrase. That will result in valuable information being spread to multiple pages instead of being contained in one.

The problem here is that each page won’t see its full potential in the ranking aspect. Also, readers aren’t always willing to switch from one page to another just to get all the information they need. The juicier a page gets the more engaging it becomes for the readers. In the end, that’s what matters the most.

SEO is a must for almost any business and many are willing to spend thousands of dollars a month to gain the top spot in Google. How successful you are will largely depend on who you hire to carry out SEO on your behalf. There are more SEO companies than ever, which means finding the right one for your company is harder than it ever has been. Here’s what you need to know to find the right SEO agency for your business.

Know the difference between white hat and black hat

The first thing you need to know is the difference between white hat and black hat SEO. These are two different types of SEO tactics and which one your SEO agency uses will have a big say in how successful you are. Blackhat SEO is unethical, it is essentially spamming Google with the hope of tricking it into ranking you higher. White hat SEO on the other hand, is ethical SEO that abides by Google guidelines. It is the only ranking tactic you should be using.

An agency with a history of success

It won’t be hard to find an SEO agency offering their services at a reasonable rate. But do they have a history of achieving success? The price is only reasonable if they actually get you to the top of Google, after all. Ask if you can see proof of their previous results before anything else. Failing that, ask them to do an SEO audit of your site and see what they recommend fixing and why.

Be reasonable with your demands

Naturally, you want to get the best results possible. But sometimes it may not be possible to get the top ranking unless you are spending huge amounts on SEO. That’s not to say you should overpay, however. Make sure you are clear on what you are paying for and make sure to keep track of the work of your SEO agency every month.  

Hire an agency that can do it all

SEO has many moving parts and you need to optimize them all if you are to be successful. That means it’s not enough to hire an agency that only does link building or on-page SEO, you need an agency that can run the full gambit.

Don’t neglect content

As much as on-page SEO and link building is important, so too is content. There’s every chance that your SEO agency is going to be writing content for you, so you need to make sure that they are only writing high quality, in-depth content that is going to be engaging to read and rank well.

Site search shouldn’t just be viewed as a convenient tool for your customers to quickly find what they are looking for. Site search is also a sales tool for E-commerce websites, similar to walking into a store and asking an employee where a particular item is. The hidden benefits of site search are becoming clearer and clearer especially for those running marketing campaigns. About 87% of site searchers have been shown to fulfill marketing goals compared to the people who don’t use site search.

Site searches promote purchases

Site searchers aren’t just looking for a quick way to find information on the things they are looking for. According to the latest research, around 43% of site searchers end up buying a product from the website.

That’s because when someone uses a website’s site search, they know exactly what they want. They may have found the product on your website before or even on a competitor’s website and they are going straight to it with intent to buy. Even if they don’t buy this time, there’s every chance that they will come back and buy the product in the future. The fact is that those users who use site search will have six times more chance of buying. That’s why you need your site search to point them in the right direction every single time.

Attracting traffic isn’t enough

E-commerce companies spend thousands of dollars every month to generate traffic to their website. But spending money just bringing that traffic to your website isn’t enough. You have to do something with the traffic once it is on your website. That means providing high-quality content or products, but it also means creating a website that is easy to navigate. An effective site search tool is essential for this. Users don’t want to scroll through dozens of pages to find what they are looking for, they want to type in the product and be taken straight to it. The better your site search, the longer the traffic that you paid to generate will stay on your site. And the value of retaining traffic has proven to be massive. Increased retention in traffic has been proven to yield as much as an extra $60,000 in revenue for a large e-commerce company.

Optimize your site search for maximum effectiveness

Simply having site search isn’t enough. You need to be working hard to optimize your site search constantly so that it yields the most relevant pages possible. With this in mind, it doesn’t make sense to make your site search case sensitive or to exclude misspellings. Most users aren’t going to type in the perfect phrase every time. Your site search has to be forgiving enough to cater for misspellings while being accurate enough to discern between two products with similar names.

Improving a website’s SEO is a constant endeavor. Year in and year out, Google rolls out new algorithm changes that send SEO experts running to keep up. If you’ve been doing SEO for a long time now and not seeing results, you might need to revamp your strategies.

When it comes to keyword optimization, relevance and intent are the major ranking factors. But SEO doesn’t stop there. You’d have to think about traffic, bounce rates, linking, and more.

Still, doing it right doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. As a start, here are the things you can do that can bring a massive boost to your rankings.

Consistent and quality content

Publishing original content that is at least 2,000-2,500 words long is a must for better ranking. Google value length as much as it values substance. However, this isn’t a one-time deal. You have to post at least once a week to have a consistent impression on Google. Also, make sure that your content answers the questions or needs of your potential readers.

Inbound and outbound links

Even on the World Wide Web, no man is an island. You have to link to authority websites that are relevant to your content and niche. These links send signals to Google crawlers that your content is trustworthy and in-depth. Always link to known and reliable websites.

Aside from that, link to your own website’s posts. Make sure that it’s relevant to your current content to prevent confusing the readers.

Better loading speed  

Online users only have a very short attention span. If your site takes longer than three seconds to load, they will close the tab and look for another source. This is a bad thing when it comes to your SERPs ranking. The fewer your visitors are, the lower your ranking will be. Don’t let your potential readers dwell on the loading phase.

Optimized images

Never underestimate the power of your website’s images. Although this isn’t written content, this is still content. Make use of alt tags and terms that will make the photo show up at the search results for queries relevant to your niche.

Readability

Imagine your content as food. If it’s hard to digest, your customer will not go back to purchase another meal. You don’t want this to happen on your website, especially if you’re selling products or services. Always speak in the language of your readers. For internet users, this is a conversational, straightforward manner. No one wants to read your whole life story before they can get the pie recipe.  

Multiple forms of multimedia

Don’t settle on written content. Use photos, create videos, and post other multimedia content that will attract your readers. If your website has a funny and light tone, you can make use of GIFs to accentuate your content. As you see, these additional details will make a big difference when it’s time to check your website’s ranking at the SERPs