Let’s talk about SEO techniques.

Google is constantly developing new methods of analyzing web pages. Don’t forget that Google is a company that needs to make money, and it achieves this goal by getting better and better at answering queries within the SERP. Unfortunately, the SERPs are changing quite often.

Of course, this does make things harder on the people who rely on Google’s organic search traffic. Positive changes for Google do not equal positive changes for marketers. So, what do we do? We need to adapt.

There are many different techniques to boost organic traffic to your website. Here are six you should keep in mind when working to optimize your website.

1. Improving user experience across the website

While this tip seems incredibly basic, many web admins forget how necessary the user experience is to their success. Remember that if your website looks amateurish, poorly designed or straight out doesn’t work as intended, people will simply return to search results and click on a different link — and the SERPs will remember that. The fewer people “bounce” from your website, the higher the chance of a high ranking on the search results.

So, always try to make content easy to interpret and valuable. This includes any sort of media you upload to your website. When it comes to written content, use shorter paragraphs and mix the length of sentences.

Furthermore, try to find the appropriate keyword density — you can use various tools to do just that. Keywords, of course, are significant, but if you use them too much, your text becomes borderline incomprehensible. To find out which pages need more work, you can use a tool that analyzes the most decaying pages and gives you an approximation of how much traffic you lost.

2. Voice search optimization

A few years ago, voice search did not seem to be catching on. In today’s world, however, over a quarter of the adult US population owns a smart speaker. This type of technology will only get more popular, so try to optimize your page for voice search the best you can.

To do that, you can, for example, focus on long-tail vital phrases (key phrases containing three or more words) — they play a crucial role in voice search. Searching for semantically relevant keywords seems to be the key to doing it right. Alternatively, you can opt for using structured data. There are several types of structured data, but by far, the most popular ones are called schema markups. There are many different types of schema markups you can use, so it’s up to you to choose your preferred one on your own.

3. Prioritize mobile design

It’s a proven fact that nowadays, the vast majority of Google searches come from mobile devices. This is why you, in turn, should treat the mobile version of your website as equally important as the desktop one (perhaps even more so), especially since Google has also gone mobile-first. 

Google is now prioritizing mobile smartphone user-agents to crawl sites, meaning that the better your webpage is optimized for mobile traffic, the higher-rated it will become. The mobile version of your page will be crawled and indexed before the desktop one. The internet indeed is changing, and that’s just one of the clear signs of it happening.

4. Write new, longer content (and refresh the content you wrote before)

It is crucial to offer your users a steady stream of new, high-quality content and constantly update old content to feel fresh. Of course, we do not suggest you write complex, 5,000-word ebooks and then publish them as articles. However, keep in mind that readers of a professional blog are hardly satisfied with essential information and tips they can get anywhere else. Try to express yourself with as many details as possible while also keeping your readers engaged. It’s not an easy task, but you have to learn to do to stay successful. Try to target multiple types of search queries at once.

Also, refresh your older content as quickly as you can. Try to check which pages have started to receive less and less organic traffic lately. You can use Google Analytics to help you with that — just remember to filter your results appropriately. Keep your watch on time-sensitive topics and update them as soon as any new info emerges.

5. Build up your backlinks portfolio (but watch out for scammy sites!)

The internet has surely changed, but backlinks are exactly as important as they were 5 or 10 years ago. Your backlink sources should be diverse, but you should pick only high-rated ones as your partners. In most cases, 2 or 3 backlinks from a good, respectable source are worth more than ten backlinks from a low-quality site. Likewise, links from older sites are usually worth more than backlinks from sites that are entirely new themselves.

Of course, there’s an exception to every rule. Sometimes, it might be worth it to partner up with a smaller website if it is trustworthy and has decent metrics. This will diversify your backlink portfolio. Lately, it seems, Google has been extremely cautious of deals between websites constantly linking to each other. If your portfolio isn’t diverse enough, Google’s algorithms may decide your website should be manually checked by one of their human employees.

6. Implement SEO optimization as soon as possible

You must choose the right keywords to satisfy a search query. Unfortunately, if you fail to do this, you won’t get very far. The same goes for the length of your article. Google knows very well what kind of depth will satisfy the user intent behind a query and the general length of the article, based on the SERP data. For example, if the average word count for the current SERP is 1,000, writing a 3,000-word long article to rank your keywords won’t get you anywhere.

Once you come up with an idea for an article you wish to rank, use a proven tool to pull down top data and identify the appropriate word count and necessary keywords. You should also always test your meta titles for a CTR rank. The higher the CTR, the better — and do keep in mind that your CTR rank will be one of the deciding factors in how your website ranks against your competitors in the Google search results.

It doesn’t matter how small or large your business is; the fact of the matter is that it will always benefit from proper and up-to-date SEO practices. If you’re not sure how to perform a thorough SEO analysis of your business regularly, don’t hesitate to hire a specialist for it. It will be worth the investment in the end.

The post How to Properly Use SEO Analysis of Your Business to Boost Your Traffic appeared first on Entrepreneur

Original source: Entrepreneur