In today’s rapidly shifting world, SEO techniques can change on a dime—and the worst part is that you might not even know it. Hacks that could have won you a front-page result as recently as 2016 are not only obsolete now, but they may even hurt your website’s rankings.
We spoke with Jacob Warwick, Director of Communications at Skedulo, and Jesse Teske, SEO Manager at YLighting, to get their expert thoughts on the most current SEO tactics. In this post, we’ve broken down the top SEO techniques to help you skyrocket your rankings and boost your number of monthly visitors.
Before we learn about improving your web page ranking, let’s take some time to test your current page ranking on search engine results.
Here is a free tool offered by SERPs that you can use to determine your page ranking based on keyword search. Take some time to explore the tools and other multiple search criteria they have to offer like domain name, location and device type.
Effective SEO Techniques
I’ll talk about the following tactics in this post:
1. Improve engagement to improve rankings
2. Make your existing pages longer
3. Focus on YouTube SEO
4. Improve site speed
5. Focus on topics instead of keywords
6. Build backlinks
7. Reporting and analytics
8. Technical optimization
9. Local SEO and Listings
10. Guest posting
1. Improve Engagement to Improve Rankings
Simply put, engagement is the ability to hold a user’s attention. In SEO terms, it is a measure of the amount of time spent on a page.
Although Google hasn’t officially declared it, there is evidence to suggest that this search engine giant does reward sites with strong user engagement with higher page ranking.
2. Make Your Existing Pages Longer
A recent study by Backlinko concluded that the longer the content, the higher the likelihood of it ranking at the top of the SERPs.
However, writing 2,000+ words for every blog post is not for everyone; it’s an intensive, time-consuming process. Instead, it’s much easier to take a page from 1,200 words to 2,000 words than to go from 0 words to 2,000 words.
3. Focus on YouTube SEO
YouTube videos rank in top 10 of Google search far more frequently than any other types of videos. According to Forbes, YouTube is also the second most popular search engine with more than 3 billion searches per month, surpassing Bing, Yahoo, and AOL combined.
Focusing on YouTube SEO will push your website onto the first page on Google and get you traffic from YouTube as well. The result? Twice the traffic with same traffic.
4. Improve Site Speed
Back in 2010, Google announced that it would be using site speed as a ranking factor and since then, Google has consistently emphasized the importance of site speed.
First, it launched the PageSpeed tool to help developers improve site performance, followed by the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project to boost speed on mobile sites.
5. Focus on Topics Instead of Keywords
Google is evolving and so is its algorithm. Its objective now is to understand the intention of the users: what users expect, what they are looking for, and more specifically, what search results would best help answer their query.
6. Build Backlinks
Despite what you might have heard, building backlinks is still crucial for good rankings.
According to Google, links are still the #1 factor when it comes to determining search rank. Gary Illyes, Chief of Happiness at Google, says that “ranking without links is really, really hard.”
7. Reporting and Analytics
A critical part of SEO is reporting and analytics, which are indispensable to improving marketing strategies. By setting up an analytics platform to track both micro and macro events, you can understand your customer’s journey from your sales and marketing funnel.
8. Technical Optimization
SEO and content tips aside, it’s absolutely essential to have a solid website, without worrying about any technical issues that may arise. With that being said, here are some tips and techniques to help you ensure that your website is up to par.
9. Local SEO and Listings
In the digital era, it’s easy to forget that people still visit physical shops and establishments. True, they may use online resources to research, but plenty of commerce is still conducted in real life. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, you can’t neglect local SEO and listings if you want to stay profitable.
10. Guest Posting
Guest blogging is a method used by bloggers to increase blog traffic where they write posts to be published on another blog.
Few years ago this method was deemed dead because of all the spammy content and paid links. However, this is not true anymore. As long as the blog post has original and high quality content, Google will not penalize you. Just be sure to avoid duplicate and repetitive content.
