You don't need to be a technology expert or web developer to optimize a website for search engines. While some technical aspects of SEO are important, there are a lot of things anyone can do to make a website more visible. Search ranking algorithms change, but the quality of content has always been at the forefront. This is because, when it comes down to it, search engines exist to answer our questions, and we cannot forget that. Here are four tips that will allow you to use the power of content to rise up your search rankings.
Don't sacrifice good writing for keyword density
A common misconception of SEO is that you need to stuff your site full of keywords you want to rank for. Yes, search rankings are keyword-driven, but gone are the days where you can focus your entire site around one keyword and rank well. Nowadays, overdoing keyword density can actually get you rankings penalties from Google, but perhaps most importantly, it makes for bad writing and a poor user experience. Google uses latent semantic indexing (LSI) to understand searchers' intent, meaning they deliver search results based on more than just exact keywords. LSI considers context, location, word variation, synynoms, concept matching, and natural language queries to provide the most relevant search results (Google). Keywords will always be the cornerstone of SEO, but it's not as simple as many think. Keep your writing natural and relevant, and don't overdo it. A good rule of thumb is to never do anything on your website that is intended to trick a search engine or a visitor.
Keyword-targeted pages
The above section was not meant to convince you to ignore keywords, but to encourage you to be cognizant of the fact that overdoing it can actually have negative effects. If your content sounds unnatural or gimmicky, it probably is, and Google is probably noticing this. You should be creating quality content that features your targeted keywords. A good way to keyword-optimize your site is to assign each page a focus keyword and use that keyword once in the header, title, and meta tags, and a few times in on-page copy. This makes it obvious to search engines what each page on your site is about, keeps you organized, and gives you an easy way to evaluate the success of each page in terms of SEO.
Frequent website updates
New content is always better than old content. Regularly updated content does two major things for your website. First, it grows your overall content, giving your site more overall keywords and a better chance to rank for searches. Secondly, site updates cause search engines like Google to index your site more often. This alone won't improve your search rankings, but a more frequent indexing gives search engines more opportunities to recognize quality content on your site, so make sure to keep your content relevant. An easy way to keep content on your site fresh is to publish regular blog posts or news articles. Never stop looking for ways to grow, because you are never "done" with a website.
Never forget why Google exists
First and foremost, Google exists to answer users' questions. "Focus on the user and all else will follow" is actually Google's #1 thing listed on their "10 things we know to be true" list (Google). Natural, relevant, and new content will always trump any SEO improvement "trick" you read about. You know your customer better than anyone, so write content that will appeal to them and the search rankings should follow.
In the broad strategy that is inbound marketing, SEO is only one aspect. If you are part of an eCommerce company, or would like to learn more about inbound marketing, click on the link below.
