Ranking In SEO?
Rankings in SEO refers to a website's position in the search engine results page. There are various ranking factors that influence whether a website appears higher on the SERP based on the content relevance to the search term, or the quality of backlinks pointing to the page.
Tips To Use SEO Correctly
1. Keyword targeting
Keywords are phrases that are commonly searched for on Google, Bing, etc. and they are a crucial part of determining your website’s rankings. Use the right amount of keywords in the right places and in time you’ll see your pages climb up the leaderboards.
Keyword strategy has changed a lot over the years, it used to just be stuff as many in there as possible, but lots of content then became spammy and sites were ultimately penalized by Google’s algorithms. These days, you need to do your keyword research, use a wide variety of keywords, and fit them in naturally. Google gets smarter by the day, so they’ll make you work for it.
2. Metadata
You can think of metadata almost as your shop window. Your meta title and meta description are the first things a user sees in the SERP which influences whether or not they click.
Also, Google uses what are known as ‘crawlers’ (imagine tiny robot spiders), to scan through websites and collect information that matches search queries. By including keywords in your meta data (including image tags and heading tags) Google can more quickly understand the relevance of your page.
3. Backlinks
As we move into the more technical side of things, another crucial factor in SEO performance is acquiring backlinks. This is when another website links to yours in an article or blog post. Not only does this help you gain what is known as domain authority, but it also directly improves the chances of people clicking through to your website if it appears on other reliable domains.
You can earn organic links by simply writing engaging content: the better your work and the more closely you match with a person’s search intent, the more likely others in your industry are to reference your site. This overarching process is known as link-building and while you can simply reach out to other sites to trade links—quid pro quo—there a plenty of other activities that can help speed up this process:
Guest blogging.Testimonials.Answering questions on sites like Quora.Creating shareable content such as videos and infographics.Using industry contacts and sharing on social (e.g. LinkedIn).
4. Technical SEO
Carrying on from that, there are various other technical issues in the back end of your site that once addressed, can make a huge difference in your overall SEO results. At the end of the day, if your website’s UX isn’t smooth and accessible, it’s going to be hard for any visitor to do anything significant on your website. For context, over 50% of all online traffic is mobile, so when it comes to things like UX, the technical stuff matters.
Whether it’s ensuring site speeds are quick, removing ‘toxic’ backlinks (links to websites that are deemed irrelevant or untrustworthy etc.), or creating a clear XML sitemap with a clean URL structure, all of these technical SEO tips can be huge when it comes to securing those higher rankings. You don’t want anything to get in the way of SEO doing its job, which is allowing for people to find your website organically.
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5. SEO metrics
You can’t do effective SEO if you don’t know what “effective” means! You’ll need to have a thorough understanding of SEO metrics in order to measure, analyze, and improve your SEO strategy.
Why is organic traffic and SEO important?
If you’re looking for longevity and cost-effectiveness when it comes to your digital marketing, organic search strategies driven by SEO can’t be beaten. Not only is SEO cheaper than paid advertising but its effects are longer lasting. While PPC campaigns need to be renewed and bidding costs fluctuate, SEO tracking tools use organic data to compile lists of keywords and continue to throw up more content ideas the deeper you dig.
Admittedly, SEO can feel like a slow burn at first. Nevertheless, you can start to see serious upturns in your overall traffic and rankings after a few months. Furthermore, the longer you stay at it, the more backlinks and site authority you build, meaning you can go for even bigger and better keywords, and so on and so forth.
Even starting at the other end of the spectrum—targeting long-tail keywords and more detailed variants—especially when it comes to content and specific sub-topics, is an excellent way for SMBs to see results early and build a platform towards momentum. Over a third of Google’s total search queries feature four or more words (i.e. long-tail keywords). Not only are these keywords less competitive and therefore easier to rank for, but they can also still drive plenty of cumulative traffic organically.
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