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How To Vastly Improve Your SEO

It's crucial!

By Will MilliganPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
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How To Vastly Improve Your SEO
Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

In the fiercely competitive online market that exists today, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) remains an unmistakably influential commodity in the fight to reach the summit of website browsers. It is estimated that in excess of 70% of internet users click on one of the top five suggestions provided. If you are the owner of a website, blog, or online store, SEO is going to prove vital in driving organic traffic your way. This is no momentary revelation, it’s unremittingly important and will remain! You’ll require solid strategy and a willingness to enforce it. With that in mind, here’s 22 ways how it’s done!

Increase the loading speed of your website:

Maintaining a rapidly loading website is a crucial factor in significantly improving both SEO and user experience. It is estimated that even a seemingly unimportant one second delay can carry substantial penalties, with this directly contributing to an 11% decrease in page views. Consider enabling compression with Gzip, a software application. It will reduce the size of your CSS, HTML and JavaScript files that are larger than 150 bytes. Utilise Content Distribution Networks (CDN’s). Essentially, these are a network of servers that are used to distribute the load of delivering content, meaning that copies of your website are stored at geographically diverse data centres, with the considerable benefit of enabling valuable users reliable, and crucially, swift access to your workings! Additionally, improve your server response time. This is affected by the amount of traffic your website receives, the hosting solution and software you use and the resources each page exhausts. To improve your server response time, search for performance related hinderances such as slow routing, lagging database queries and a lack of sufficient memory and rectify them.

Break up your content with header tags:

Why are header tags important in improving your SEO? Well, these tags act as indicators in HTML that structure your website from an SEO standpoint, as well as enabling Google to understand your content. Header tags form a hierarchical system, ranging from tag one to six, with one being the most influential and powerful, simultaneously providing an identity, and knowledge of the page.

Optimise internal linking:

Internal linking is absolutely necessary in developing both your SEO and user experience. A distinctive system of internal linking superiority will have users contemplating your website for much longer, drifting from quality content to quality content! Not to mention, having deeply embedded, contextual and enthusiastic copy linked to an already engaging article is a positive signal to Google and the reader. The more time spent on your website, the better!

Fix broken backlinks:

Not only are broken backlinks harmful to the user experience on your website, they also act as a catastrophic deterrent to your precious relationship with Google! Who wants to be redirected to an erroneous page? Strongly consider utilising Site Audit, which will execute a live trawl through the minefields of your website, ensuring that all broken backlinks are hastily identified. From there, you can either replace the defected links with regenerated and improved ones or eradicate them indefinitely!

Consider writing longer format posts:

Generally, it is beneficial to write posts of diversifying length, enhancing the variety and quality of your website or blog. However, longer format posts do possess considerable advantages. Namely, Google has more opportunity and scope for discovering in detail what exactly the topical connotations of your post address, and naturally, influential keywords will materialize with additional frequency! So, consider supplementing your articles with a complement of protracted posts!

Use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing):

Latent Semantic Indexing, LSI, it sounds exhilarating! These keywords are essentially conceptually related terms that search engines utilize to interpret thoroughly your websites underlying content. Throughout the years, Google has developed in terms of its intelligence and comprehension. It used to be vitally important to cram an article with keyword density. If you were writing about graphic design for example, then flooding a post with the keyword ‘graphic design’ would heavily influence SEO. Nowadays however, using LSI, keywords such as typography, photography, gradient or texture will enable Google to confidently assimilate the theme of your content!

Utilise outbound links:

An outbound link, or external link as they are occasionally known, is simply a link with the intention of transporting a visitor to another page within your website, or alternatively, directing them towards a completely different site. Simultaneously, managing to achieve links from elsewhere burrowing into your website are notoriously burdensome to manipulate, and can drastically enhance your SEO capabilities by heightening your popularity, increasing your relevance, improving your reputation and boosting your value. Undoubtedly, utilising outbound links can be blatantly beneficial to you, as search engines look upon them as essentially third-party votes for your content!

Don’t use text exclusively, include high quality images!

Use images! But make sure they are optimized comprehensively in order to successfully maximise your speed and accessibility! Just stating the obvious doesn’t cut the mustard however, you want to know precisely how to render graphics in the most superior quality, in order to significantly compliment your written content! Firstly, image formatting. Predominantly, it’s advisable to use PNG, which produces unquestionable image quality with a larger file size, and JPEG, conventionally utilised for the more commodious, visual images. Whatever you do, refrain militantly from uploading uncompressed images! This can be done efficiently within Photoshop, or through various WordPress plugins, although it is important to discover which ones will compress the visuals externally on their own servers. If you’re able, invest additional energy in creating original, exciting and optically stimulating illustrations, it is meat-and-potatoes for SEO, and is fundamental in enabling your content to attract attention from the anonymous visitant. Furthermore, by doing this you will assuredly embroider your creative flair and editing ability, and it’s a riot!

Optimise your website for mobile!

This is a no-brainer nowadays. Having a mobile optimised website is integral, exploration becomes untroublesome, content is reformatted, the navigation button is enhanced, and images are repurposed depending on the screen size of the particular device. Here’s a fact! 60% of Google searches are now completed via a smartphone, whereas five years ago the figure stood at 34%! Mobile optimisation is the way to go!

Establish a strong social media following:

Social media is a jungle. Granted, it’s an incomprehensible, vengeful, uncompromising battleground at times, but here is an equation. It is developed for sharing, which equates to increased visibility, leading to humongous accumulations within the SEO landscape! Simple! Except, it’s not. Building a manageable, resolute and meritorious online presence is drudgery, it requires elbow grease! Straight off the bat, initiate a sickeningly enchanting charm offensive, acknowledge everything you can, interactions are required to be undergone with monotonous regularity, it’s imperative to connect with your audience. Similarly, when you’re producing impressive and valuable content, don’t be perturbed when it comes to sharing, get it out there! Consistency is king. Posting with unyielding coherence is hearteningly reassuring. There’s nothing worse than discovering some exceptional content complete with quick-witted astuteness, before detecting the stream of activity was apprehended months ago! Also, branch out, and don’t be sheepish about it. Press into service Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest! Manipulate all the platforms procurable! Happy hunting!

Be active on question and answer websites!

Question and answer websites can be an absolute goldmine! In making use of these treasure troves, you’ll develop your brand awareness, initiate and solidify relationships with potential visitors or collaborators and establish your content as a source of renowned expertise within your identified specific field. Crucially, Q&A sites rank highly within organic search results, possessing constant engagement and are continuously updating and regenerating. There is Quora, Reddit or Answers.com to begin with, and a plethora of others too, so get answering!

Use infographics!

Fundamentally, infographics are a visually enticing combination of images and text, incomparable when attempting to convey a complex topic to your audience in a concise and entertaining fashion. Successfully executed infographics can transform tremendously your content, especially when utilised in conjunction with other technologically advanced elements, facilitating significantly enhanced rankings within search engines! Furthermore, infographics are undoubtedly one of the most prosperous and advantageous techniques when it comes to efficiently transferring your content to audiences using smartphones or tablets! Fusing concise information and refreshing images, consider implementing content diversity with infographics!

Force your way into Google News!

Google has notoriously rigorous standards and specifications, getting yourself including within Google News, signifies your content as a trustworthy, authoritative and prestigious source. Ranking is determined algorithmically, based on the originality, quality and diversity of content. An additional benefit of appearing in Google News, is that your copy will arrive in search results within minutes of publishing! Writers are also supported generously in various ways. In 2018, Google established a $300 million initiative to calcify distinctive, contemporary journalism and to barricade misinformation from germinating. It is a three-year plan, combining features that include a variety of tools, helping publishers command subscriptions and supplement their revenue. Predominantly, there are two prevailing instruments accessible to plunder the prizes of Google News, and that’s through licensing your content through the Producer tool, or you have the option to submit your website for inclusion utilising the Publisher Centre. Importantly, you are rewarded for developing content which has been thoroughly researched and interspersed with maximum effort!

Keywords!

A site that optimises keywords is a happy site! They are the intersection between what potential visitors are searching for and arriving at your quality content. The most convenient and time effective method in developing keyword inspiration is to simply utilise a keyword research tool. Here, you can enter some wide-ranging terminology relating to your industry or content topic and be reimbursed with keyword potentials!

Optimise your website for voice search:

32% of consumers are now increasingly interested in switching to an incarnation of hands-free technology, predominantly due to the considerable advantage of reduced physical contact and contamination, particularly in these trying times. Additionally, voice searches are amongst the most rapidly expanding, with an approximated 55% of users asking voice-initiated questions on a smartphone, and 39% of internet surfers operating alongside a voice assistant at least once a month! So, if your website is not already reaping the SEO related benefits of voice search optimisation, it is time to rectify! A considerable way to make meaningful inroads into advancing your voice search optimisation, is to place particular emphasis on a more controversial, colloquial keyword. In confusingly contradictory fashion however, do not consign to oblivion the traditional and everlastingly influential short tail keywords, but rather consider the potential relevance of incorporating the natural phrases and words that accumulate more frequently in spoken discourse. Conversational longtail keywords are the future!

Refresh your content that has diminishing traffic:

Would it not be refreshing if you could gain organic traffic simply by renovating your forgotten articles? How about implementing fresh impetus into old content, resulting in illustrious advancements for relatively little effort? This can all be achieved alongside the production of passionate, supplementary work. Something as elementary as the laborious spellchecking and uninteresting repunctuating of your seasoned writings will increase the brightness of your website, as well as persuading Google of the originality and novelty of your content. They’ll boost you up the rankings in no time!

Measure your SEO performance:

Surveying your SEO performance to align yourself with the impact of your work and constant refurbishment is of critical importance. Measuring in depth aspects such as conversion rate, (this can relate to anything from an email signup to an item purchase) the time spent on your website, pages per visit (is it your intention for visitors to extensively utilise your impressive network of internal linking and surf from article to article) or scroll depth, amongst much more! When scrutinising your SEO administration, you’ll swiftly discover what requires attention and improvement, and simultaneously, what is working efficiently.

Optimise your URL’s:

To begin, your URL’s must be readable and obtainable universally. This is why you should not use dynamically generated URL’s, instead customising them independently in order to provide maximum comprehension. Fortunately, there are various routes to explore when it comes to optimising URL’s. The usage of capital letters should be strictly and commodiously outlawed, as they can perplex search engines. Next, give preferential treatment to hyphens as opposed to underscores, the methods you utilise in separating words are important! Similarly, a respectable way to inform Google which websites are device optimised and friendly, add your mobile URL’s to a sitemap.

Create a backlink portfolio:

Lastly, we have backlink portfolios. Backlinks are widely recognised as one of the predominantly beneficial methods when it comes to stamping your authority in the eccentrically diverse internet landscape. Proud ownership of substantial amounts of quality backlinks allows swifter indexing, metamorphosing to higher rankings within an abbreviated timeframe. Furthermore, backlinks enhance your websites overall credibility. When your site is recommended with an extensive and illustrious gathering of backlinks from reputably influential sources within your particular industry, Google understands this as an indication that you are delivering quality and trustworthy content! Not only do backlinks drive additional traffic in your direction, but they are also talented and worthwhile relationship builders!

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About the Creator

Will Milligan

An aspiring writer of anything on my mind!

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  • TheBestIndexer10 months ago

    The tips you provided are practical and valuable. Increasing website loading speed, using header tags to structure content, optimizing internal linking, and fixing broken backlinks are all important strategies for enhancing SEO and user experience. I also appreciate your suggestion to write longer format posts, as they allow for more detailed and informative content. Utilizing LSI keywords is a smart approach to help search engines understand the theme of your content. Outbound links and high-quality images are additional elements that contribute to SEO success. Mobile optimization is a must in today's mobile-centric world, and establishing a strong social media following can significantly increase visibility and engagement. Participating in question and answer websites, using infographics, and aiming for inclusion in Google News are excellent ways to boost your online presence and credibility. Keywords play a vital role in attracting relevant traffic to your website, and optimizing for voice search is becoming increasingly important. Refreshing old content and measuring SEO performance are valuable strategies for maintaining and improving your website's performance. Finally, building a backlink portfolio not only drives traffic but also enhances your website's credibility and authority. Overall, these tips provide a comprehensive guide to vastly improving SEO. Thank you for sharing this valuable information!

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