Top 7 Best SEO Tips Your Business Should Follow

Originally posted on https://www.webconfs.com/2557/top-7-best-seo-tips-your-business-should-follow/

Leads from search convert over eight times more than those from outbound marketing techniques. But, you have to rank high first to get those leads. SEO helps your pages rank.

There are over 200 factors that Google considers important when ranking pages. Which ones should you focus on first? Keep reading to discover the best SEO tips your business should follow right now.

The first thing you’ll want to do, and do right, is topic research; also known as keyword research.

When doing keyword research, top SEO tools are your best friend. Doing this kind of thing by hand is super time-consuming. Here are a few keyword research tools that you should check out:

• Google Keyword Tool
• SEMRush
• Answer the Public
• Google Trends
• Wordtracker

Exact match keywords are no longer the most important SEO factor, but rather the intent behind a keyword. Before committing to a keyword, make sure you understand its intent.

Besides the keywords that users are typing into search engines, find out which ones your competitors are ranking for as well.

Write for readers first and foremost. Search engines track people and how they interact with content. Providing useful content for people will earn you rewards with search engines in return.

Besides writing great foundational content, these additional fringe techniques will give your pages an extra SEO edge.

Format your text for easy viewing on screens. This means using headers to divide and organize information. Also, leave plenty of white space and write in small paragraphs; three sentences max.

How does this relate to search engine optimization? It affects dwell time. If visitors think your content is overwhelming they’ll leave and lower your dwell score with Google.

Header tags signal to Google that the information contained within them is extra important. Put your main keyword in a header tag. Use secondary keywords in any other headers on the page.

Include your main keyword in the opening paragraph, closing paragraph, and one main header. Don’t keyword stuff the rest of the article, it won’t do you any good. Sprinkle in related keywords throughout the blog post.

That said, you should also add keywords to your images. Use them in the filename, alt text, and title. Doing so adds more clues as to what your page is about for search engines. It also increases your chances of showing up in Google image searches.

You’ll want to write a compelling introduction that grabs the attention of the reader. Make them want to keep reading so that they don’t leave.

Google pays attention to these things. The longer a visitor stays on your site, the better you’ll rank.

On a regular basis, add fresh and unique content to your blog. Google has a ranking factor that takes into consideration how often you post new content. Your freshness score will affect your search engine rankings.

Create and organize your content according to the keyword topic. This technique is content clustering. Google favors websites that focus on the same topics.

Once you have the main pillar topic, create more content around related topics and link them together. This is one of those SEO tips that’s underutilized most of the time. Start using it to climb ahead of your competition.

Domain authority comes from off-page links that point to your pages. It works much like the cliques in a high school. You have the popular kids; those who hang out with them become part of the in-crowd too.

If Google sees that you have lots of links from other popular and trustworthy websites, they determine that your site is valuable too. Google passes higher page authority from links which come from popular websites.

Need some ideas on how to build backlinks? Here are a few to get you started.

Content Repurposing

Repurpose your content to get the most mileage out of it that you can. What does that mean? Use your written content to create:

• Videos
• Slideshows
• Social Media Posts
• Infographics
• Podcasts

Distribute your content to the appropriate channels with a link back to your website.

Guest Posting

To get started with guest posting, search online for blogs related to your niche or industry. Once you find one, contact the owner and pitch a piece of content to them.

If they accept, write the piece or hire a writer to write it for you. Within the content, include a link to your website.

Keep an eye on which keywords are sending traffic to your website. If you don’t already have great content built around them, start adding some.

Mobile use continues to grow each year. More and more people are using their mobile devices to access the Internet, sometimes more than a desktop computer.

Google recently started ranking mobile-friendly sites higher after implementing its mobile-first index. They now pull all search results from their mobile index, even if a person is searching on a desktop computer. Make sure that your business site gets optimized for mobile, if it’s not already, and loads fast on devices.

It seems like a lot to remember, but if we break it down it doesn’t look so bad. We covered:

• Keywords
• Content
• Site Organization
• Backlinks
• Mobile-First Indexing

The best SEO tips your business should follow first are the ones you’re lacking. Remember, SEO isn’t a quick fix for traffic and sales, so don’t give up too soon.

Got any more SEO tips that have produced positive results for your business? Let us know in the comments.