What are the most effective SEO practices today that will get you noticed?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is like the butter for your bagel. Without it, your bagel is dry and no one wants a bite of it. But with it, your bagel is tastier than any other, and everyone wants a piece of it. That's what you want for your website. Buttery goodness. Or better said, SEO goodness.Related Blog: SEO vs Inbound Marketing Case Study: $3 Million Generated in 6 Months
1. Create Optimized Content
If you want more traffic to your website, you've got to give visitors what they came for. That means creating content that search engines crave and is SEO friendly.
To accomplish this, consider a blog. Your blog title should include relevant keywords. Use H1 headers inside your blog that include the same keywords. To further optimize your content, include those keywords in your tags and descriptions, too.
2. Put Yourself on the Map
Google loves a good sitemap. Basically, a sitemap is a collection of pages from your website that is quickly accessible to bot crawlers and users.
Without a sitemap, it may take bots a bit longer to find your site. With a sitemap, you are essentially compacting your site information so you can be found quicker and ranked higher.
3. Solve a Problem
When you create any kind of content, your objective should be to solve a problem for your visitor. Therefore, write content that takes them on a journey that states the problem, presents a solution, and then offers next steps so they can attain the solution.
When prospects buy, they do so because they are in some kind of pain. If you want more buyers, be the remedy. Be the solution. Be the one they go to every time.
4. Practice Genuine Link Building
Link building is an SEO practice where other websites or sources link back to a page on your website.
Link building is considered one of Google's top three search ranking factors. In order for Google to rank you, your external links need to be genuine. To accomplish this, market your pages on reputable channels and social platforms.
Buying links won't get you noticed, so don't go there. Google bots are smart and can smell a junky link a mile away. This kind of tactic can get you penalized and cause more harm than good.
5. Local SEO Ranking
Local SEO is different from standard SEO in that it uses business directories like Yahoo or Yelp to help customers find you. It weeds out national businesses when someone is doing a local search so you rank toward the top.
Another important factor in local SEO is customer reviews. In a recent survey, it was learned that 90 percent of buyers are influenced by online reviews. Knowing this, reviews are crucial because they affect your rankings in a search.
Follow these SEO best practices to optimize your web content and maximize online marketing efforts.
