Top 10 SEO Tips for Your Content in 2020

What is SEO? If you are a business, you’ve probably seen this three-letter acronym a few times and it is important that you know what it means as well as what it can do for your company. SEO stands for search engine optimization and it is the process that effects where your website ranks in search results on search engines like Google. There are some simple things you can do to boost your business to the top and get more people landing on your website page. Take a look at the top 10 SEO tips to optimize your web presence.

Keywords are probably the most important aspect of writing your content. What do you want your post to show up for on Google? When picking a keyword, think of some variations of that word. Depending on who you ask, some call a carbonated drink soda, while others call it pop. Part of optimizing for SEO is knowing how many times to use your keyword throughout your content. The number of times your keyword appears on a page is called keyword density. For example, if your page has 100 words and 1 of them are your keyword, then the keyword density is 1%. This is one of the most important top 10 SEO tips because the keyword is the basis of your content.

You know those little sentences under the website’s title page that give you a glimpse of the webpage? Those are called meta descriptions. Although these are just a few sentences, it is very important to write them strategically because every word counts. If a consumer reads your meta description and it doesn’t give them the information they are looking for, they won’t go to your website. It is important to have your keyword in this description as well.

Believe it or not, your images need keywords too! As number three on the top 10 SEO tips, images are part of keyword searches! If you are posting an image of something specific, keep your keyword specific. For example, if you have an image of a specific dog, such as Siberian husky, you should probably name your image that. If you name it something generic like “dog”, it will get lost amongst all the other images of dogs. Specificity is important and should also align with your keyword strategy.

If you are designing a webpage, it is best to split the content into sections with subheadings and make sure your keyword is in your headings. Divvying up the content allows each paragraph or section to have a specific focus outlined in the heading. This structure makes it easier for Google to understand what your post is about.

We get it. Keywords, keywords, keywords. Well, guess what? It’s a good idea to put your keyword in your URL. Every post or page has a unique URL (also known as slug) and this should reflect the specific keyword on that page. The keywords will come after the backslash. For example, if you are on a retailer’s site and you’re looking on their shoe page, it might look like www.retailer.com/shoes.

Of course, you think you have the best content. You worked hard on it! You can have great content, but it doesn’t really help when people are choosing another website over yours. If this is the case, then you might want to work with an SEO strategist to define if your content is optimized correctly.

If you want rank #1 on Google, it needs to look like your page is “alive” and active. If you have a page that isn’t performing well, you should consider deleting the page or giving it a makeover. There’s a chance the content is great, but the page is outdated. People searching for information want the latest and greatest. One simple thing you can do is change your “published date” to a “last updated date” to show the page has been updated. This is one of the simpler top 10 SEO tips to help with your website.

When creating your awesome content, consider getting rid of things you might not need. Declutter your sidebar and only put necessary tabs. This will speed up your page’s loading time. If you have too much going on, the consumer might have to wait an extra few seconds for your page to load. Those few seconds can make or break your page. If viewers don’t see the information they need quickly or your page takes too long, they might leave to find the information elsewhere.

Links, whether to a relevant article on your own website (inbound) or to a different site’s content (outbound), will help your value in rankings. It might seem scary linking to outside sources but this makes you look reliable when you have multiple sources and you’re not taking all the credit. Also, if you link to a site, others will be willing to link to you and this will increase your website traffic. When using links, you also have to watch out for dead links and make sure they are still working.

Voice search is one of the newest ways people search for things. It is a lot faster to tell ask phone what you want, versus typing it out. It is important to make sure your content is searchable when people are using the voice feature. Investing in a partner who ensures that you are voice searchable is one of the easiest ways to increase site traffic.

Becoming an expert in SEO takes a lot of time and practice. You might have to practice these top 10 SEO tips several times before you get it right and reach the top of the results. If you need help getting your business higher in the search results, contact us here.