For years, SEO has been used to place websites at the top of search engine rankings. Essentially, site owners used keywords in as many places as possible to rank higher than the competition. SEO is now a completely new world. This was never more obvious than 2018 when Google completely changed the way sites are ranked. Some said SEO was dead. The key is learning the new SEO techniques that not only lead to better traffic, but traffic that converts.
Google Basics
The first step is to learn what Google, the largest search engine, is looking for. Forget everything you learned about stuffing keywords in every chance you get. Instead, limit keyword density to 3% or less in content. The new concept you have to learn is to develop your website for humans, not search engines. As such, you must focus on content that is free of grammatical errors and reads smoothly. Keywords should appear naturally. Limit the number of links to one per every 100 words as well to avoid being marked as spam.
Google wants to find content that is relevant, well written, original and informative. Meet these requirements and you’re well on your way to embracing the new SEO. The best possible thing site owners can do is always review Google’s latest website ranking standards.
SEO Friendly Calls to Action
Anytime you want your readers or viewers to do something as a result of your content, you need a call to action. This is the perfect place for content optimization. Use a catchy, yet descriptive call to action that tells visitors what you want them to do and what benefit they’ll receive. Include at least one major keyword or phrase along with your business and/or product name. This helps ensure your traffic converts to sales.
Less Fluff, More Info
Don’t stress over a set word count. While longer content is preferred, content that’s full of fluff will rank lower than shorter, highly informative content. Any content you provide to visitors needs to stay on topic. Fluff leads visitors to other sites. The longer a visitor stays on your site, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
It’s All About Humans
Technology is wonderful. However, humans actually require engaging content that makes sense. Search engines do not “read” like we do. While writing for search engines worked in the past, search engines are making major changes to ensure sites are created for human visitors instead. These are the sites providing a real value to visitors instead of trying to scam or spam them. While Google is the frontrunner in these changes, others are quickly catching up. With social networks starting to be factored in, writing for humans is all the more important.
Don’t Spam
Content can be promotional. However, don’t spam your visitors. Content over 100 words needs something other than advertising. Add real information to convert traffic to sales. The new SEO is all about avoiding spam. Make your visitors happy and you’ll see your rank, traffic and sales increase.
Main Factors That Rank a Website
In the Internet world websites are not judged based off of how flashy the design is or how user-friendly a page is; websites are judge on how they rank with Google. Using a scale of 0 to 10, Google helps potential advertisers, search engine and even website visitors know just how popular a website is or is not.
Several different factors play into how a website ranks in Google’s PageRank. The following is a look at the top 5 main factors that help move a website up in ranking.
Factor 1 : Traffic
Traffic is defined as the number of original visitors a website receives during a given time frame. Traffic is a main factor because there has to be some reason why people keep coming back to the website time and time again. The more visitors that visit a website the higher it will rank.
Factor 2 Original Content
Search engines and website rankings love original content. Original content is important because it can help encourage people to link back to your website, or refer the site to friends. Both of these factors can help improve the page ranking of a website.
Factor 3 : Backlinks
Backlinks is the technical term for when another website/blog links back to an original website. The better backlinks an original website or blog receives, the higher it will potentially rank. Backlinks are valued in a similar fashion to traffic, as search engines believe the better the links that a website gets, the more relevant it is and the more people may want to visit that site/blog.
Factor 4 : Pages Indexed
Indexing pages through various popular search engines can help improve page rank. Indexing pages through search engines requires you to manually submit the pages to the search engines, which can be time-consuming. However, it is well worth it to help improve page rank.
Factor 5 : Keywords
Google loves keywords, especially when they are directly related to the content you produce. Keywords in the URL, meta tag description, in the content, anywhere they can go. That doesn’t mean you stuff the page with keywords, but using them naturally throughout the website will help you improve your ranking.
Many other factors can go into helping to determine page rank. However, if you just concentrate on these five factors you can help your website slowly start to climb to the top of Google SERPs.