Mastering SEO on your website isn’t a one and done exercise

Back in the early days of the Internet, SEO was a much easier game – and yes, it was a game. There were rules on how to do it right. We called it White Hat SEO, which involved a series of meaningful steps to guide people who needed/wanted specific content to specific sites. And then there was Black Hat SEO, which gamed the system, tricked Google into driving more traffic to a site, whether the content was on target or not. In those days, the online traffic game was all about eyeballs, which drove advertising revenue in very big ways.

But just as the ways we use the Internet have changed, so have the rules for SEO. Google has evolved to the point where not only does Black Hat SEO not work, it can get a site blacklisted. But for White Hat SEO, does link building still work? Is on-page SEO still important and how does it connect to your social media efforts? Is site speed as important as targeted keywords?

It’s hard to know which SEO tactics to invest in and which ones you can safely ignore.

A digital marketing audit of all your digital assets is a good place to begin but from there, let’s hone in on a few ways Google ranks your site on the SEO scale – and how you can improve your site’s ranking.

Remember that even small SEO tweaks can alter how Google views your site and potentially improve your rankings in organic search.

SEO technics to improve search rankings and drive more organic traffic

1. Site speed is important. In early 2021, Google announced a gradual rollout of page experience updates, many of which revolved around site speed. The mandate was clear – remove anything non-essential on your site that slows it down. From your customer’s perspective, a beautiful, highly-functional site is still important – but useless plugins and widgets that suck up bandwidth are not. Review everything on the backend of your site and remove what doesn’t add value. Improving your site speed by even milliseconds will increase traffic to your site.

2. Relevant linking is critical to growth. Linking to authoritative sites that offer readers more information on a topic has always been important. Google sees “neighborhoods” created around webpages and rewards those that improve the consumer experience. But it’s time to start thinking of link building as a part of a larger Digital PR Go beyond the link and develop relationships with the sites you’re linking to: information hubs, media outlets and digital influencers. Not only will link building become more powerful, it will add to your social strategy as well. Imagine how traffic can improve as those sites you link to begin to link back to you or refer to you in their social media updates.

3. Keywords are still important. How Google sees keywords on your page has changed but they’re still priority number when it comes to page level SEO. Not only are keywords important, according to Moz, where keywords appear in your title tags can affect ranking. Clearly, strong copy-writing skills are a must. What’s more, while Google no longer uses meta descriptions as a ranking signal, they can affect click-through rates in search results. And lastly, a gentle reminder – every page on your site should have a unique meta description as every page on your site is unique, right?

4. URL structure matters. It’s always mattered but in today’s world where customers are searching quickly from their phones – while doing 5 other things – it’s even more imperative. Keep your URLs neat and tidy and easy to remember. Remove connecting words and keep only what’s necessary. For example:

• Blog title: How to Get More People to Read Your Blog content
• Bad: socialnorth.com/how-to-get-more-people-to-read-your-blog-content
• Good: socialnorth.com/sharable-blog-content-5945

5. Respect headlines. Your headlines not only help direct traffic from Google, they help consumers understand what the page is about – and to skim to the parts that are relevant to them. Use this guide to balance creativity with functionality when creating headlines.

• H1. Contains your targeted keywords, making it easy to understand page content at a quick glance.
• H2. Contains supporting keywords and can be more creative, enticing consumers to read further. Can be a question or simply creative copy-writing
• H3. Contains keywords from either/both H1 and H2, breaking up the content to make it easily scannable.

6. Customer experience trumps everything. Manipulating search engines with keyword stuffing (Black Hat SEO) is as effective as click bait. You might get a few more clicks but will you be reaching your ideal customer? Take time to research long tail keywords that your customer is using and you’ll not only reach that customer, you’ll create loyal followers. It’s called SEO copywriting and it works. Pro tip: harvest search terms from the search box on your site – there may be some keyword gems hiding there.

7. Analyze your efforts. Google Analytics on your site is a must-have. Understanding how your visitors get to your site, what they do there (and for how long) and how they leave will help you understand them better – which will help you deliver richer content and a better experience.

While a lot has changed in the world of SEO, the fundamentals remain constant. The above list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good start if traffic to your website is flagging. If you’re struggling with your digital strategy, I’d love to hear your questions and how I can help. Drop a comment below or shoot me an email and let’s start talking.

In the meantime, these posts might help you begin your content marketing journey:

• Do you use images in your blog posts?
• Are you using social proof on your website?
• Using the power of evergreen content in your digital strategy