Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO, can be an excellent tool for marketers who know how to leverage it to their advantage. Over 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, so around 60% of marketers say that SEO is the best source to generate quality leads for a business. Further, it is not just marketers who benefit from SEO, but professional bloggers, entrepreneurs, and almost anyone with an online presence can benefit from the enhanced capabilities of SEO.
SEO is now a crucial tool for every business in the 21st century mainly because SEO drives more than 1000% traffic compared to organic social media. However, using SEO to the advantage of firms is not as easy as it seems. Therefore, to make SEO a little simpler for businesses, we have compiled a list of effective SEO practices to help companies achieve their SEO goals.
- Understanding SEO: Success in SEO does not come easy, and to ensure proper success over Search Engine Optimization, one must first understand what SEO is and what can be done with it. In common terms, SEO basically is the process of optimizing web pages to rank higher in search engine results. Enhancing the rank of a website also increases the chances of visitors visiting the website. Most importantly, we need to understand, unlike paid ads, SEO is all about organic traffic.
- Ensuring Webpages Load Quickly: It is not the 90s anymore, and most people avoid visiting a website that takes more than five seconds to load. This is why page speed is one of the essential factors that can affect the rank of a website. Numerous factors can affect the loading speed of a page, including the server’s location, the code of the website, images, and more. There are many tools available in the market that can measure the loading speed of a website.
- Keywords: Keywords are basically one of the essential pillars of the entire SEO effort of a business. Choosing the right keywords can align a web page with Google’s algorithm, resulting in a better website ranking. Companies must avoid using overused keywords and also ensure that the keywords resemble the goals of the business. Numbers suggest that 42% of keywords get ten or fewer searches in a month. Therefore, one must be careful while choosing keywords and go for something that resembles uniqueness.
- Leverage HTTP: Ensure the security of your website by using HTTPS to encrypt information exchanged between the server and the visitor. Not just that, HTTPS has been a ranking factor for a while now. One can check if there is already using HTTPS by simply checking the loading bar of the website as websites using HTTPS feature a lock icon in front of the URL. Nevertheless, the good thing here is that HTTPS needs to be used just once, and it lasts for as long as required.
- Effective Linking: Incorporating to other websites and web pages can be beneficial to enhance SEO performance. There are two different types of links used by marketers, namely internal links and external links. Internal links are used to enable the search engines to find and review other pages on the website. As the name suggests, external links send visitors to other websites with relevant topics or content. It is recommended to use at least two links in a blog post to ensure effective performance.
- Create Quality Descriptions, Title, and Content: Always refrain from publishing plagiarized content on the website as it degrades its reputation. The titles and descriptions featured on the website must be engaging and alluring, as this is the first thing that visitors read as they visit the website. Even though it can be challenging to come up with cent percent unique content at all times, one must understand that this difficulty is worth it.
- Avoid Using Long URLs: As per Google and many other search engines, businesses must use short and simple URLs as the long ones tend to intimidate visitors. It is best to only keep the essential words in the URL and avoid any unwanted details.
Final Thoughts
All the pointers mentioned above are good enough to get a business started on the SEO journey and maybe even continue for a while. However, there are many other important factors that one must consider to ensure better ranks in the search engine results. Therefore, keep these pointers in mind before designing an effective SEO strategy.
