This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
14 SEO Techniques to Follow in 2018
This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
SEO has changed drastically over the years and tactics like weak content, keyword stuffing, spammy and irrelevant backlink building to achieve high rank in Google do not work anymore. This leaves most of the bloggers wondering about the latest SEO techniques are most effective.
So here, we are going to discuss few of the latest SEO tips and tricks for the upcoming year 2018. These SEO tips and tricks are shared by few of the established and renowned SEO experts in the blogging industry.
Google recognizes only those websites that follow all the guidelines and do proper SEO on their websites. So if you wish to take your website to the next level with the help of the best SEO, then, here are the best Search Engine Optimization tips will help you reach your goals and make your website one of the best.
1. Manage SEO Optimization with Semantic Search
You will have to simultaneously learn to read the mind of your targeted audience and optimize your website for LSI keyword instead of standalone keywords only.
It is very important to make your website mobile-friendly in 2018 to make friends with Google and your targeted customers.
2. Work on your Website’s Meta description
Before deciding the meta description ask yourself if the title precisely portrays the content of the website or is the portrayal strong enough to attract clicks? If you have already made one, consider updating it by utilizing best tools and practices.
3. Improve the user experience of your website by fixing all the on-page technical issues
Also check your website for any content related issue like long/short META tags, no ALT attributes, duplicates etc.
Look for any page speed related issues and make your site as fast as possible for Google and searchers as well. You can increase the website speed by CSS, JavaScript, and HTML minification, browser cache leverage, image compression etc.
4. Look at Who’s Connecting Back to You
Backlinks that connect you with many different sites and connects them back to yours are very useful and important, especially if they are from those sites that are referred by Google. But beware of those websites that Google considers as black hat. These can influence your website’s rankings negatively. According to a research, there is an immediate connection between search rankings and quality backlinks. The higher the quality backlinks, the higher are your rankings.
5. Make your Keyword Research and Optimization Contextualized
Gathering your basic keywords list by taking ideas from various sources like keyword suggestions and competitor semantic research. Utilise free keyword tools to broaden your keywords further. Find out long-tail content ideas that will also help you in your landing page optimization.
6. Interaction with the users beyond links and keywords
Search engines have started to notice the way users interact with the website. The responsibility of SEO has been transferred to online marketing professionals who possess wide knowledge about on-site and off-site SEO. They also need to be creative in crafting unique and quality content and understand user’s behavior.
Search engines are trying to understand the semantics behind each query and expect website owners to do whatever they can to optimize content in a way that is understandable to both users and search engines.
7. Use proper Internal Links structure to improve content search visibility
On your landing page, make use of descriptive anchor texts and link it to relevant internal pages that are covered with similar topics as on the previous pages. Do not build too many links from one page because the more you link to pages, the less authority you give with it.
8. Emphasising on the design of the website
Design plays an important role in driving traffic. Users usually stop interacting with a website if it looks unappealing. Hence, we can see a lot of visual content like high-resolution photos, videos, other graphic elements and more implemented on all the websites.
Users these days appreciate simple designs and straightforward messages on websites. Also since the users are always on the go and look for instant solutions, not flashy elements, minimal designs are preferred that don’t look too glossy yet give great looks to the website and the eyes of the users.
9. Improve SERP clickability with optimized structured data
Make your Q&A content as structured and simple as possible. The crisp and clear answers give you room for improvement. Dress your brand using the Knowledge Graph optimization entities like the website name, it’s logo and social profile links.
10. Use AMP as a ranking factor
Rev-AMP all of your content. Convert all your website pages into AMP pages. Although AMP is still not a ranking signal officially, Google is going to make the Accelerated Mobile Pages project take the center stage. It has a great impact on the search and performance of a website.
11. Use the Mobile-First Search Index trick
In 2018, Google is planning to launch a separate mobile search index that will be the primary index. So brace yourself to give the mobile SEO your best.
Speed up the load time of your website content. Google officially recommends you to keep the website content load time below 3 sec to achieve higher rankings. Users’ do not like to spend their time on websites that do not load within 3 seconds.
Also, most of the users use their mobile devices these days, so it is ascertained to make sure the load speed is faster on the small screen as well.
12. Comments that look like spam
Leaving a clear promotional comment not only kills the conversation but also makes you lose respect from the other blogger community. Emphasise more on building a reputation and good relationships by providing informative and appreciative statements on other blogs.
13. Use Tools to improve SEO Performance
Get a list of hand-picked tools that can help you best to work on your website and use them for improving the SEO Performance. Ask for recommendations from friends and fellow bloggers. You can also use several plug-ins for the same.
14. Make it a Valuable website
Respond to all your customer inquiries, comprehend their obstacles, take care of their problems and be useful. Provide important, precise and rich content that has some worth and gives your visitors just what they are looking for.