Finding a single all-encompassing SEO strategy to boost your business is no child’s play. In fact, there is no such thing in the modern world. Many things go into making your website friendly to Google and other search engines.
As you may already know, search engines have a significant influence on the success of your website. It is where potential customers or clients who have no idea you exist get to find you and engage with you. The friendlier you are to search engines, the easier it is for your content to pop up during random searches.
That’s where search engine optimization comes in. SEO is one of the most misinterpreted concepts on the internet. Marketers and website owners are skipping the very basic stuff in pursuit of the complex elements they reckon determine the ranking of their web pages in the search results page.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but SEO is a lot simpler than everything you may have always thought it was. The following tactics will give you a better grasp of the concept and help increase your website’s visibility on the internet.
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Avoid keyword stuffing
We had to start with this because ‘keyword’ is probably the first word that comes to mind at the mention of SEO.
You often read and hear that your content should include as many of the relevant keywords as possible to boost your website’s ranking and generate more traffic. Well, if SEO were that simple, appearing on the first page of Google’s search results would be as easy as creating web pages made entirely of keywords.
Search engines do recognize too much use of a keyword. If anything, Google may stop ranking your website anymore if you are caught stuffing keywords. Imagine such a small mistake on a single webpage affecting your entire site in such a damning manner.
Let your content flow naturally with the key phrases you are using. If when going through your webpage it feels like you have overused a keyword, you probably have, so revise your work and reduce the keyword density.
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Do not duplicate content
Google doesn’t like it when two web pages contain the same thing. Duplicating someone’s content will only lower your ranking on Google result pages as you don’t offer any value to the reader.
Search engines reward websites and web pages that post unique content that speaks directly with the person reading it. You can have two or more blog posts talking about the same subject, but both of them cannot rank high if they contain the same content, regardless of how well optimized the content it.
Google have no problem if you write about a single topic in several web pages as long as the writings are different. For instance, you can write about “4 ways to repair your credit score” in one post and “tips to fix poor credit fast” in another, followed by two completely different articles, without being penalized for duplicate content.
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Avoid creating overly lengthy or short content
The length of the content you post is another SEO factor you should keep in mind while creating new web pages. Make your posts between 500-1000 words long. This feeds the search engine with enough information about your webpage and reduces your chances of keyword stuffing.
Perhaps the biggest challenge here is coming up with enough content to write about. You are advised to write about topics that have plenty of information you can readily access.
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Familiarize yourself with outbound linking
An outbound link is a link that directs your readers to another website. Outbound links are good for providing proof or more information about what your site is talking about. So what are the dos and don’ts of outbound linking?
The most important one is to ensure all links used are working. Anyone willing to click an outbound link is really interested in the extra information, and nothing would be more disappointing to them than opening a 404 Error page. Google won’t penalize you for it, but it will have a massive impact on your reputation.
Sometimes links conk out long after you have published them. You can avoid this by running a broken link checker occasionally to detect any links that may have stopped working.
Another thing to take into account is the SEO tactics of the website you are directing your readers to. If the linked web pages take forever to load, your readers may opt to seek the information elsewhere and ditch your website for good.
Lastly, make sure you link only to reputable websites that are not your direct rivals, to ensure you don’t lose your customers to competitors.
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Keep updating your content
Google’s algorithm is so sophisticated it can tell how often you update your content. If your website is dormant, you will rank low regardless of how well-optimized the existing web pages are.
People make the same mistake of going months without adding anything on their website then out of nowhere publish ten blog posts on the same day. This, as far as SEO is concerned, is as good as not publishing anything at all. Google would prefer it if you spread those across one or two weeks.
If you can, update your website once every week at the least. If you can make it twice a week or even daily, the better!
