Since SEO became a known profitable marketing channel, we have seen many people try to figure out the core Google algorithm, but since it shifts and evolves over time, it’s almost impossible to break it down, and even if you do, things come and go in terms of importance. Things come and go when it comes to SEO trends also; one day the title tag may be the most important, and the next you may find that the H1 tag is critical to success.
Finding the right tasks and putting them in order of most important is one of the ways that you can shortcut the process and enable yourself to get better rankings without having to change everything under your control. Instead, you can focus on the top of the pyramid and change the most effective factors to yield the fastest results possible. This is great if you have clients because they will often want to see results quickly, and around the 3-month mark is when they may get buyer’s remorse, so finding the most important things to edit quickly can save the client and keep the money rolling in.
The first thing to consider is the title tag. This is a very important on-page tag that can be edited to yield fast results. You can change title tags at a very fast speed and then get Google to recrawl the pages so it picks up the new title tags. This is a very fast method, and when done in bulk, it can really boost search rankings quickly.
A quality title tag should push the most important keyword to the front of the tag. For this, you need some good keyword research done either manually or by your favourite keyword research tool. Once you find a keyword, be sure to put it at the front of the tag and then separate it out and have your brand name at the end of the tag. This will build ranking for the keyword but will also show Google that you are building a brand name as well.
The second thing you should consider is the meta description. This may not be a direct ranking factor, but improving this will yield greater click rates and traffic without you needing to do the normal things like backlinks, uploading more content, and many more. This is a quick win and worth fine-tuning because ultimately getting more traffic from the same amount of results will always be the best strategy over trying to rank brand new keywords from scratch.
Some tips for meta descriptions are to include more sales-focused copy and get the keyword you are targeting in the tag and towards the front, but after that, you want to include your brand name and any sales features you offer. It’s a good idea to include words like “free delivery”, “buy one get one free”, “large selection”, and “affordable prices” in the description, as these tend to be things that lead to consumers buying from you over your competition.
The third factor to consider is ensuring your site is mobile compatible. More searches are now done via mobile, so it’s critical your site not only loads quickly for mobiles but also uses the principles of responsive design to ensure it looks great on desktop, mobile, and tablet. This is a technical process, but you need to do it, as you could be losing a lot of money if your site doesn’t display well, causing the consumer to click over to a rival company.
The fourth factor to consider is keyword research; nothing kills an SEO process faster than aiming at the wrong keywords. It yields so many problems because you can start out facing a battle you simply can’t win without even knowing it; you could spend years trying to rank for a keyword only to realise that the competition has it locked down.
Some tips to follow for keyword research are to pick keywords with little competition to start with; this will help you to build momentum towards the large, broad keywords you may wish to rank for later. Keywords with no competition will rank much faster than broad keywords, so why not collect a huge amount of low-competition keywords and change your focus to those? An example of this would be finding out some make and model numbers for popular products and making some on-page changes to rank for those keywords.
Ranking for a large amount of make and model number keywords is a great strategy to not only get some early wins with your SEO process but also to actually make some money as well. These keywords convert extremely highly because they target “credit card in hand” customers; these are people that have already done the required research and are now ready to purchase something.
Most businesses are simply not aware that ranking for broad keywords will increase traffic and give them a hand over the competition but won’t always produce the best results when it comes to sales. You should also look at costings and ROI for broad keywords; as they increase traffic, you may find that they start pushing your hosting services to the limits, and then you have to pay extra. They also tend to be very time-consuming to rank for. The best method is just to skip broad keywords until you have great visibility for long-tail money keywords.
The fifth factor would be to create quality content and start doing it frequently; having more quality articles with in-depth information on your website will help to improve your brand name and increase the chances that a consumer will find you in the search results. Your content strategy should be aimed at helping the consumer who may have questions before purchasing. One of the most overlooked strategies is to create first-time buyer guides for people who are new to your marketplace.
First-time buyers are often embarrassed about lack of knowledge and may be a little too shy to ask for any help. If you can help them along the way, then you will likely get the sale. Make sure you create content around frequently asked questions that first-time buyers may have, and then you will position yourself as an authority within the industry, and you will become a magnet for people looking to purchase what you have for sale.
Quality content is rather subjective, but in search engine terms it can mean producing keyword-rich content that answers questions, gives historical information, provides links to other authority websites, and even provides data to back up the points made. You should also get your creative thinking cap on and come up with new content ideas that other sites don’t have in your market, as this will give you a competitive advantage.
When it comes to content, not every article has to be thousands of words, but in general, longer content tends to answer more questions and go more in-depth, which is why Google appears to prefer longer content with more words. However, you should not be scared to go with shorter content if it helps the user. Try including more pictures or videos or even have someone else write some content for your website, as this helps Google to see you as a brand that wants to educate the consumer as well as have them buy from you.
The sixth and last factor is to work on your backlinks. This should be left till last, as it tends to be the most time-intensive process you can do. Things like listings with local citation sites, press releases, guest posts, and even building relationships with bloggers in your market will help you to get the quality backlinks that you need to rank for a wide range of keywords, but perhaps the best way to get links on autopilot is to create a link magnet. A link magnet is a piece of content that can help out the entire market and is a useful resource.
Building a useful resource should be top of your list; this could be things like a marketplace calculator or a piece of software or even a viral article that highlights an issue. Either way, you want to create something that can be shared online and then inform people via email or social media that you have created it. This will then start the process of them linking to it, which creates more power to your domain name.
Good backlinks take time to acquire, but a good tip for them is to focus on quality over quantity; getting lots of backlinks is not the best idea if they are extremely low quality. Instead, focus on getting links from related websites that offer similar content or are even in the same market as you. If you do this, then you will not only get new backlinks but also get some traffic, which is generated as other people click your link directly.