Search engine optimization (SEO) is the continuously evolving process of increasing the quantity and quality of organic website traffic in top search engines. Since Google is by far the most influential search engine, most strategies are focused around those search results. Organic traffic is the lifeblood of businesses and blogs around the world.
SEO should always be a top concern for digital marketers and business owners across all industries. Your website's ability to generate organic traffic can be the difference between sweet success and utter failure. Purchasing paid traffic with ads is usually expensive and social media's organic reach has been waning for years. That means organic search engine traffic is even more crucial to driving brand awareness and sales.
SEO and digital marketing overall are constantly changing with continuous tweaks to the Google algorithm and fluctuating PageRanks for a billion websites across the globe. Your search strategy needs to adapt to these changes as well or your traffic numbers will pay the price and you'll never achieve Google greatness.
Don't kill the golden goose that is organic Google search traffic. Here are seventeen smart search engine optimization strategies for modern SEO specialists to help keep that organic traffic flowing:
1. Avoid Private Blog Networks (PBN)
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a group of websites that you manage in order to drive high authority backlinks to your primary website. They are usually comprised of expired domains that had previously earned valuable backlinks. They are also usually pretty thin when it comes to providing visitors with valuable content. PBNs should also be avoided at all costs if you're looking to invest in SEO for the long term. They can get you penalized by Google in a worst-case scenario or just be a waste of time and money in a best-case scenario.
Back in 2011 & 2012 hundreds of websites dramatically lost their rankings after Google started rolling out their anti-black hat updates. Most webmasters who dabbled in link exchanges, comment link spam, content spinning and many other grey or black hat tactics were either penalized or suddenly lost their rankings. It was clear then that Google wasn't going to tolerate PBNs any longer.
Private Blog Network owners have gotten smarter in the way they host and manage these sites, but Google is omniscient and catches on eventually. PBNs might not actually end up hurting your site rankings, but your energy and marketing budget would be better spent elsewhere.
2. Maximize Your On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is still one of the most fundamental elements of SEO. Ever since Google first launched, its sole purpose was to index, categorize and prioritize data as accurately as possible. A website's metadata including page titles and meta descriptions tell Google what your website is all about, and where you belong in search results. On-page SEO certainly does not guarantee a Page 1 Google ranking, but without it you may not rank even rank on Page 101.
On-page SEO considers dozens of the major Google ranking factors including keywords, meta descriptions, navigation, site security, internal links, external links, site speed, ads, word count, mobile-friendly pages, images, and video content. Do what you can to keep your page quick, user-friendly, and easy to navigate.
Another factor that many bloggers and webmasters don't consider is broken links and link rot. Internal and external links on your site can become dead links if they no longer point to a viable site. If the links are internal you can easily fix them or create a redirect. If they are external links, then you can remove them or modify them to go to viable websites. This happens a lot over the years, especially if a website switches providers or adds a new SSL certificate. Top-ranked SEO software or free broken link checkers can determine if you have any of these on your site.
You might also be getting some links from spammy or penalized websites. These low quality backlinks don't help your Google PageRank and can even damage it. Determine which spammy links are pointing to your site and use the Google Disavow Tool. You can and should also contact those websites to ask that they manually remove those links. Just disavowing it doesn't always get the job done and you don't want your site to be penalized as a result.
3. Longer Content Leads The Way
Content has been considered key in the SEO world since the beginning. The world's top SEO professionals have preached that “Content Is King” for the better part of two decades. Even though some people still believe that high quality backlinks are far more important, content is still critical no matter how you look at it. But it's not always about the quantity or frequency of your posts, but the quality and length that can make a big difference.
Research and case studies both strongly suggest that websites with longer content (1,000 - 2,000+ words) tend to rank higher. The frequency of content publication seems to have less of a correlation to higher rankings. So you might be better off publishing a lengthy blog post or article once a week rather than quick blurbs daily.
4. Optimize For Voice Search
People are buying millions of Amazon Echo and Google Home units and a variety of similar devices. Your website, content, keywords and overall SEO tactics need to start reflecting this reality and optimizing for voice searches. Keywords will often times be long-tail and conversational instead of just a few specific words like in regular typed searches. Your writing should reflect how people actually speak, especially in regards to how they ask questions.
Voice searches will continue to be a growing trend as these devices become more popular and more advanced. Automobile manufacturers are now starting to include them as built-in features in new cars, so people can do voice searches while they're driving. That's just the tip of the iceberg though. Soon you might be asking your smart refrigerator or high tech stove to provide you with search results!
5. Keep Your Website Fast & Secure
When it comes to data security and privacy, corporations like Google aren't taking any more chances than they have to. Google prefers ranking secure websites higher and site security has been a ranking factor for a long time. They've taken things to the next level by clearly displaying "Not Secure" on Chrome browsers for websites without a valid SSL Certificate and no "https" domain prefix. Other major browsers like Firefox and Safari have followed suit.
If you don't have an SSL Certificate, you can get one free or relatively inexpensively depending on your site. Websites without them have dropped in ranking and appear less trustworthy to visitors so this is becoming a necessity.
6. (High Quality) Content Is King
People are sick of reading fluff content and filler blog posts. In the early days of content marketing, the focus was on creating the greatest quantity of content possible. Weakly rewritten articles and watered down posts would get published daily because it got those precious clicks and filled a content quota. Everyone knows that low quality content doesn't get results anymore.
However, in the last few years, we have started to see more ‘epic’ content. Epic content means long-form articles, which cover the topic comprehensively. But many people are not a fan of this style, so we are seeing a shift to ‘dense’ content in some cases. Dense content covers the whole topic in a way that keeps the article as short as possible. It makes sense because people have lower attention spans and all the Yes this kind of contradicts #3 about longer content leading the way, but it can depend on the topic and industry.
The main takeaway is that regardless of content length, it needs to be unique and helpful to the user. Filler or scraped content doesn't cut it any more. And your content needs to fulfill a query to become and remain highly ranked.
Write for people and not just search engines!
7. Machine Learning & AI Are Impacting Algorithms
When Google rolled out RankBrain it was clear that AI and machine learning were going to influence the SEO industry. Google’s RankBrain and Hummingbird are some of the first search programs on the market that have the ability to learn about their users. These new algorithms help Google to update their programming quickly to better serve users. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to become dominant factors to consider in the field of SEO.
8. User Experience Optimization (UEO) Is Part Of SEO
The user experience has been a part of SEO for a long time, at least to some degree. Google has started to favor sites that are optimized for most devices, load within a short time, and have users that stay on the website for a longer period of time. And Google isn't very forgiving of websites that have a copious number of ads on each page, especially if they are intrusive and effect user experience (UX). In our modern marketing age we'll continue to see UEO become a major part of SEO.9. Utilize Google My Business
Google My Business is a valuable free tool that gets your physical business listed on glorious Google Maps. If Google sees the right signals then your company can rank well in local results too. The local rank results are the results you’ll see when Google has interpreted your search query to be location specific.
Try typing ‘plumbers near me’ or 'restaurants near me' into Google and you’ll likely see a few ads and some localized listings before you see other organic search results. These first results could be comprised of several ads or several local listings depending on how competitive the market is.
Local listings are valuable to your business so you want to make sure you create and verify your listing with all of the necessary information included.
10. Local Citations
Local citations are when your business is listed or mentioned in local directories and other similar sites. It's an old-school SEO tactic for sure, but depending on your business it can still be very useful. You’ll probably only need to do this once anyways and it’s pretty simple. Just look up your location with the word ‘directories’ after. There are some obvious ones (besides Google Maps and Bing Places) like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Yellow Pages, and Foursquare but you may find some more niche directories as well. They can be especially helpful for local businesses that don't have a lot of website backlinks, social media pages, or an optimized site. Just don't spend too much time on them and don't pay for these local citations!
11. Positive Business Reviews When it comes to local customers, online customer reviews are pure gold. Positive business reviews are testimonials that other potential clients and customers can trust and it really impacts buying decisions. It also effects Google rank and your rank on other influential search engines like Facebook, Amazon, and eBay. All things being equal, the listing with the higher number of reviews and higher average review score will rank better. Requesting these from previous customers is totally fine but paying for reviews or falsifying them is not. Blatantly fake reviews are pretty obvious to everyone and they can end up damaging your online reputation.
12. Improve Page Speed
We've already established that user experience plays a significant role in determining conversions for many businesses. According to recent studies, nearly half of customers expect a page to load within two seconds. Also, almost half of people move to other web pages if the page that they are browsing does not load in three seconds. You'll need to speed up your website for both desktop and mobile searches.
It's necessary that you get rid of issues which hinder your page's loading time. Some of the best methods to do so includes using better servers and a content delivery network (CDN). You should also aim to limit your redirects since they can negatively impact your page speed. You should also optimize your images which can speed up page loading significantly. You should pay attention to image size before uploading and optimize each image carefully. Another mistake is blocking CSS and JavaScript. Google has mentioned that voluntarily blocking of CSS and JavaScript can lead to lower page ranking. Instead it's better if you keep these files as small and concise as possible.
Other useful methods include enabling browsing caching, compression and reducing the number of plugins. Reducing the number of ads displayed on your page can also make a huge difference. Streamline your site to keep it quick and uncluttered.
13. Guest Post On Other Reputable Websites We all know that Google's former Head Of Web Spam Matt Cutts said that "guest blogging is dead" in 2014, but it's still going strong to this day when done correctly.
Building a healthy collection of dofollow backlinks is essential to any SEO campaign. Guest blogging on other relevant high authority websites is a great way to earn some valuable backlinks. Well-placed links in guest blog posts are recognized by Google as being part of relevant, organic and high quality content. Reaching out to other respected blogs in your niche is a smart move.
14. Allow Guest Posts On Your Site
Everyone wants to write guest blog posts for other high authority websites in their niche. But allowing more high quality guest blog posts to be published on your website can also help a great deal as well. Your guest bloggers will be more likely to share the published article on their social media, and maybe even link back to it on the websites that they own. Think of it as a collaboration between industry experts and a great source of free content. You can determine your standards including length, links, images, bylines, and other on-page factors to avoid any spammy submissions.
15. Increase Time On Site
Keeping your website visitors interested and not bouncing back to other search results is very important. One way you can increase average session duration time, a possible ranking factor for Google, is by embedding media such as videos, podcasts, slide decks, or even infographics. As a bonus it will also boost your stats for any embedded YouTube videos or podcast episodes.
Just make sure the embedded media doesn't slow down your website too much in the process. It might end up being a trade-off, so determine what makes the most sense for your page.
You can also provide additional internal links to other complimentary articles on your website to keep visitors engaged. You can include these internal links throughout your post but definitely make sure to have at least one at the end of your article.
Long-form content can also boost time on site, as long as your posts aren't so long that they just leave before the end of it!
16. Grow Your Referral Traffic
Boosting referral traffic (your website visits from external website links other than Google) should always be an important part of your SEO strategy. Besides just guest posting as mentioned above, there are other effective ways to boost your referral traffic. Participating in interviews, collaborations and expert roundups will expose your brand to new loyal audiences while bringing in additional traffic to your website. Social media platforms also provide a significant amount of referral traffic when used correctly (see more below).
17. Social Media Marketing
Social media is often left off the list of SEO best practices, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. While social signals aren't considered much of a direct ranking factor, indirectly they can help a great deal. Google places a lot of emphasis on overall website traffic to a page and social media posts can drive a lot of that. They can also drive a lot of brand awareness and inquiries which results in more searches for your business on Google and more organic traffic. Over time both of these factors will improve your website PageRank.
Go Be An SEO Pro
SEO is constantly evolving so you need to stay on top of your game to get that Google glory. Learn from the past and don’t resort to cheap SEO tactics if you plan to stay in business for long. Don’t neglect the most fundamental elements of your search strategy. Getting top ranked pages on Google isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
I hope you enjoyed this article about smart search engine optimization strategies to rank well on Google.
Interested in more articles about SEO strategy on Google?
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