SEO Best Practices 2014

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an evolving and intricate field, but with some best practices you can implement to help make your website more SEO friendly.

These tips can help your site stand out from the competition and boost search visibility, but they won’t instantly rank your site at the top of Google.

On-page optimization

There are a number of strategies available to you for optimizing your website for search engines, but one of the key strategies is on-page SEO. This involves aligning page-level elements such as title tags, headings and content with specific keyword sets in order to increase organic traffic and search visibility.

Optimizing your pages with keywords makes it easier for search engines to match up the relevant user queries with your content, while simultaneously meeting the needs of your target audience.

Make sure that you incorporate all of your target keywords into the content on each of your web pages, as this will increase their chances of ranking higher in search results and driving more traffic. However, avoid “keyword stuffing,” meaning using them repetitively without naturally weaving them into text – otherwise known as keyword stuffing.

Conducting keyword research is a great way to ensure that your pages are optimized with relevant keywords, and an excellent way to kick-start SEO efforts. By conducting an exhaustive analysis of keyword usage on each of your web pages and content pages, conducting a successful keyword research campaign may yield surprising results that help ensure success with SEO efforts.

Unother way of optimizing pages for keywords is through structured data creation. Simply adding a few short tags that inform Google about how best to understand your content could make all the difference in search rankings for your site.

Add structured data to your pages, and it can allow you to provide more details about your products, services and other details directly in the search engine result page – creating what is known as a “rich snippet,” which will boost click-through rate and conversions from search.

Optimization of both page titles and meta descriptions can also help your pages to rank for relevant keywords in search results, increasing click-through rates. Meta descriptions appear under page titles in search results and have an indirect effect on CTR.

As part of your on-page SEO efforts, it’s also essential that your website loads quickly and is mobile-friendly. This aspect is integral to SEO as it ensures users have a pleasant experience while on your site, increasing the chance that they return. Google PageSpeed Insights tool makes this easy – check for speed anytime!

Link building

Link building is one of the key best practices of SEO, and should form part of your overall strategy. Although it takes time and effort, a successful link building plan will improve search engine rankings, attract additional referral traffic and expand site authority.

Link building, like any SEO best practice, should be seen as an ongoing process that requires constant evaluation of strategies as your campaign develops and monitoring of results so you can see whether your links are working or not.

First step of creating an effective link building strategy is understanding your target audience and their needs. Doing this will allow you to produce content which people will want to link back to while simultaneously helping identify referring websites.

Step two in successful link building involves finding websites relevant to your audience with high domain authority that could link back to you – these sources of quality links could become sources for link backs that will drive success for link building campaigns.

Reaching out to existing bloggers or content creators who have an established following and asking if they could link back to your piece can also be an effective strategy for link acquisition. Developing relationships with them and offering something of value in return will likely result in them providing you with their link.

Once you’ve located suitable sites to approach, it’s advisable to develop relationships with these individuals. Though this process can be time consuming and difficult at first, its rewards become evident once your link building efforts bear fruit.

When reaching out to these individuals, make sure they know you have an interest in what they are writing about and that your product or service fits perfectly into what they are writing about. If they think your product or content is superior they may link back to it!

Maintaining a higher standard in link building requires being aware of possible shady tactics, which could potentially result in manual penalties or algorithm updates from Google – it is therefore wise to be extra vigilant when trying to build quality links.

Content creation

Content creation can be an intimidating challenge for anyone, not least due to all the different forms of media content available today that need producing. As there are multiple kinds of media production available today, you must ensure you produce content for your specific target audience and produce what will resonate most effectively.

Analytics allow you to monitor the effectiveness of your content and determine whether changes should be made or not.

An audience survey can help you gain more insight into their needs and preferences for content consumption. With this information in hand, you can use this knowledge to refine and make more engaging your writing and presentation of it.

Content that resonates with its target audience is key for successful digital marketing. Writing material that addresses their needs, concerns and questions can make your message more relatable and increase its ranking high in search results. Personalizing it further may make it more appealing and improve its chances of ranking well with search engines.

On-page optimization is another essential element of content production. This requires making sure your page is well structured with clear page titles and meta descriptions, including keywords in text content throughout, images or videos which contribute towards SEO strategies.

Finalize, it is vital that your content remains fresh and updated regularly. This may mean reposting old posts or publishing new ones regularly. Or it could mean revamping older pieces to give them a modernized feel as well as adding links.

Use of your primary keyword as part of the title tag or headline is one of the key aspects of content creation. Doing this will ensure that when users search Google, your post ranks for its target keyword and appears higher up in results pages.

Your URLs must also be optimized, in order to rank high in search results and attract organic traffic. This can include changing filenames to correspond with targeted keywords, using descriptive alt text on images/videos when applicable and using captions when possible.

Social media

One effective strategy for driving traffic and increasing leads for your business is optimizing its social media profiles. Similar to web pages, social media pages should be utilized as extensions of your search engine optimization strategy and used as channels for sharing links or blog posts that generate leads as well as building brand recognition.

Republishing high-performing old content to extend its shelf life and make it easier for audiences to discover and follow your brand on social media platforms is also highly advised. Doing this will enable more viewers to discover and follow you and stay abreast of your activities on the platform.

Track how your content performs on social media to see what sort of conversations are taking place about it and which types of posts receive more user interaction. This will enable you to produce future pieces which are likely to gain popularity and be high-performing pieces of content.

When analyzing the performance of your content on social media, pay close attention to how many likes, shares and comments it receives from its target audience. Google uses these responses as indicators of relevancy and popularity with your followers.

As with any marketing effort, creating a clear social media strategy is an essential element to its success. Aiming for cohesion while following an efficient posting schedule are all keys components to creating the optimal plan and schedule.

An integral component of an effective social media strategy is humanizing your brand by cultivating relationships with customers and industry influencers, which will allow you to build trust among your target audience and foster loyalty from them.

People often look for businesses on social media who are responsive to customer concerns and issues. If a customer is dissatisfied with your product or service, take swift action to resolve their grievance in an efficient and friendly manner.

Social media can be an effective marketing strategy for any business, but you must adhere to ethical best practices when posting. Any posts which are offensive or inappropriate could get your account banned and lead to lost followers.