Search engine optimization (SEO) is a popular, and often manipulated and misunderstood phrase. Yes, Google SEO is VERY important to the success of your website, blog and business, but there is no magical formula or magical tech that will make your website rank at the top. Many, many companies make money off of selling some mystery they solved, but the realities of SEO couldn’t be farther from the truth.
In fact, Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is less about some technical mystery and much more about doing the same basic improvements over and over again.
While tactics may shift, the foundational elements of SEO remain steadfast, and ultimately the key to success. It’s about staying consistent with these simple principles that will make your content stand out from the rest, allowing you to rank and drive more traffic to your website. Most people who fail at SEO fail to do these things.
SEO: The 1 Principal You Need to Know
Search Engine Optimization is simply a fancy way to say your content should serve the end user the best way possible. Google wants visitors happy with what they are served, so they keep coming back to Google for their needs. That’s how they make money. To do this, it’s in their best interest to serve the best content to their users.
Therefore, your ultimate goal with SEO is to find search phrases that are relevant, rank-able and provide the BEST EXPERIENCE for the user searching for the phrase. The ultimate determining factor for this is time spent on page.
So how do you improve time spent on page? Below we breakdown how to improve the user experience with simple, but necessary tactics that will allow your target audience to find your content and stay on it, helping you rank and therefore improve your SEO metrics.
Technical SEO:
The backbone of your site is going to be important to start your SEO success. Focus on the structural and “behind-the-scenes” aspects of your website to ensure smooth crawling and indexing by search engines. This includes site speed, mobile optimization, secure structure (HTTPS), clean code, and XML sitemaps. These should be the pillar of any website build, but are especially crucial when considering SEO.
How to Improve Your Technical SEO
- The Rise of User Experience (UX): Google and other search engines increasingly favor websites that provide a delightful user experience. Key factors include:
- Core Web Vitals: Metrics like page loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
- Intuitive navigation and design: Users should be able to find what they need quickly and easily.
- Accessibility: Ensure your site is usable by people with disabilities, broadening your reach.
- Use of Language: Search engines are getting smarter at understanding the nuances of human language. Strategies to leverage this include:
- Writing like you speak: Focus on natural, conversational language in your content.
- Answering questions directly: Structure your content to provide clear answers to common user queries.
- Optimizing for related topics and concepts, not just isolated keywords.
- The Growth of Visual Search: People are increasingly using images and videos to find information. This means:
- Optimizing images: Use descriptive file names, alt-text, and consider schema markup for images (use alt-text on all of your images)
- Video SEO: Create high-quality videos with optimized transcripts and captions. By embedding videos, you are increasing your time spent on page.
- As you can see, none of these things are complicated or difficult, but they do require diligence. They allow your site to load quickly (as a slow loading site means visitors bounce that much more quickly), make it easy for readers to find what they need, and are keyworded so Google knows what users to show your content to.
Content is KING For SEO:
Google LOVES content, and not just any content, but long-form educational and consistent content. That’s why blogs do so well for website traffic. They rank for multiple different keywords, keep users engaged, and constantly drive new people to the website allowing Google to update the metrics and rankings for the site.
However, quality of content matters. So how do you determine what to write about? Aim to solve your audience’s pain points with informative, comprehensive pieces. When writing consider these factors:
Keywords: Research and strategically integrate the words and phrases your target audience is searching for in their quest for information and solutions. Think about (or use these awesome tools to look up) keywords people are searching for.
For example, let’s say you want to rank in the cooking space. You may want to write blog posts about that answer questions such as “Cheap Recipes For Dinner” or “Best Recipes for Beef”. Once you determine which question you are going to answer, next you will need to figure out the content you need to keep people on that answer for as long as possible. This often means long form editorial content, photos and video.
Add Video Content: The more people watch a video, the longer they stay. This is why video content is ranking higher and higher on search results. However the best combination for SEO is a hybrid video and blog. Keep them on your website longer by not only providing long form, cornerstone content but also by watching one of your relevant videos.
Backlinks: Earn authoritative links from other quality websites, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy.
Link Within Your Website: Linking to your own content is one of the best ways to keep people on your content (and your website). That’s why one of the key content SEO strategies is to interlink wherever relevant.
Add Plenty of Complementary Photos (and Alt. Tag Them!): Improve your blog quality by simply adding relevant images. If you don’t have the time to take them yourself, you can purchase unique blog photo content from one of my favorite places called Deposit Photos. Just be sure to add the “alt text” to each photo to help with your keyword search.
How You Write Matters
E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness: Demonstrate these qualities in your content and website. Publish in-depth guides, cite reputable sources, and establish yourself as a thought leader. This is often called “cornerstone” content. Make the content long, thorough and valuable. Be consistent.
Drive Traffic
For Google to determine if your website and content are valuable, it’s crucial that you send people to your content so Google knows how to react to it. This is where social media, paid ads, and email can come in. By sending more and more people to your website, you greatly improve its ability to measure your website and determine its value among the competition.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
SEO is an ongoing process, but not a complicated one. To take your blog to the next level in 2024, be sure to monitor your results and update your content as necessary. A few tips to help you succeed in doing this:
- Monitor Analytics: Track your rankings, traffic, and conversions to understand what’s working and where to improve.
- Stay Updated: SEO news and algorithm updates happen frequently. Subscribe to reputable SEO blogs and resources to stay informed, stay motivated, and to find new tools to help you succeed.
- Plan for the Long Game: SEO requires dedication, this means having a plan to drop new content, posting frequently, and improving up old content as it becomes relevant. Most importly stay dedicated.
With a little knowledge and a lot of determination, anyone can succeed in SEO in 2024.
