Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices today have little resemblance to those used five to 10 years ago. No longer effective are “black hat” tactics that included keyword stuffing, tiny or hidden text, and spamming competitors. Today, all those ethically odious tactics will tend to penalize your website rankings.
Google has been savvy about placing the truly authoritative websites higher in search results while penalizing spammers. Content is more valued than keyword density, freeing writers to use a more natural writing style.
Page title tags, meta tags and descriptions are all still important to get right so the search engine crawlers see an open invitation to crawl the site. Clean HTML code also helps improve SEO results.
From there, your website content must demonstrate authoritative knowledge in your area. The content must be relevant to searchers’ expectations and needs. It should be refreshed and updated on a regular basis. Unless you take care of these SEO basics, you will find it difficult to rise in search ranks.
Optimize Your Website: Think about your own research behavior. You begin with queries that are specific to your needs and search logical key words. When you hit enter, you want accurate information and data relating specifically to your query.
Google and other search engines are programmed to think this way when they perform an Internet search for you. As a hypothetical example, let’s say you’re looking for a spiritually-based counseling group called “Lights for Life.” You type it in the search field and several pages of lighting products companies and online catalogs for light fixtures come up. That experience used to be common. Google has since changed its algorithms to provide relevant content.
Bound to be Found: Knowing that Google and Bing are not just keyword junkies, the best way to build a search optimized site is to write for the benefit of your consumers. It’s okay to add creative flair to engage your visitors.
“Content is king” is a phrase you may have heard before, but that oversimplifies content marketing and leaves out the most important element—the individual consumer. So add one word to the phrase for a workable mantra: Relevant content is king.
No Mystery: Here we get to the crux of SEO best practices today. Most of the significant algorithm updates Google has made over the last several years have been toward recognizing relevancy and authority of information based on searcher intent. Search engines increase rankings for websites with demonstrated content value and penalize those with irrelevant information. So, write naturally and provide valuable information. Keep your content fresh, growing and interactive with a blog and social media feeds.
Keyword Research: Keyword research is a crucial early step in web design and development. Start with your own seed list of all the conceivable search terms and phrases people would use to find your content. You can also use Adwords, Google’s pay-per-click advertising service. For additional help, visit adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner.
Correct URL Structure: Make clear the specific topic of your page content. Your various URLs (web page addresses) should indicate precisely what will be on the page. Using a lighting products company website as an example, see the differences below:
A bad SEO URL: www.samplewebsite.com/page2/catalog1
A good SEO URL: www.samplewebsite.com/outdoor-LED-lighting
Keep Navigation Simple: If using dropdown menus, avoid multiple mouse over options that further break up categories. Try to limit main navigation options to about six. Use fundamental keywords your audience searches for in navigation tabs and page links.
Make it Responsive: Because more than 60 percent of total search traffic today is on mobile devices, Google requires websites to be responsive to various devices. Without a responsive design, you could be losing lucrative web traffic.
Integrate Social Media: People sharing your website on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other sites create inbound link traffic that Google recognizes in its ranking algorithm as a measure of page authority. Great social media content and link sharing increases your brand awareness and improves your overall SEO efforts.
Optimize and Tag Images: Make images full display size and keep file sizes low to speed up page load times. When tagging images, use keywords in your “alt image” text. Ideally all graphics on your website, including header images and call to action buttons, should be tagged.
Use Sitemaps: Include an HTML sitemap to give your visitors a clear overview of your whole website Also be sure to include an XML sitemap to aid the search engines in indexing of your content.
Chuck Sink is a marketing consultant and writer specializing in branding and web content strategies. He can be reached at chuck@chucksink.com or www.chucksink.com.