When it comes to choosing good search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, it is important to avoid falling into bad habits that can actually harm the traffic your websites receives. Although keywords are still the strongest pillars of any SEO strategy, the old approach of simply peppering your content with certain keywords is no longer effective. Here are four fresh practices you can use to boost the SEO factor of your websites and see an incredible increase of hits.
Always be original
The current Google search algorithm is not kind upon websites that feature duplicate content. If you must copy content across various pages in your site, make sure it is less than a paragraph and that it does not contain keywords; Google can spot this attempt at boosting relevance and flags it as negative. With this in mind, you should never copy content from other sources, and you should always try to inject an original angle into the content you publish. If your website is an ecommerce store that sells jewelry, you should produce original content related to fashion, precious stones, and lifestyle.
Choose the right hosting package
If you want a quick boost to on the Google search engine results page (SERP), you will want to move your websites to the fastest host you can find. In today’s highly competitive business world, people will click away from a site that has not fully loaded within three seconds. We want fast page speeds; most consumers want to be able to view the items they’re browsing as soon as possible or they lose interest. A bonus recommendation for WordPress websites would be to install the Accelerated Mobile Pages plugin and take advantage of this Google preference.
Spend time on keyword research
Now that Google evaluates every search result from a semantic point of view, strategic keyword research is more important than ever. The best modern approach is to look at the long-tail keyword phrases and try every possible variation. The advantage of long-tail keyword marketing that is rich in synonyms and equivalent phrases is that this practice leads to better conversion rates. Google knows when your written content is on topic; if your website promotes a pizza delivery business, you are better off publishing interesting and topical articles than just trying to fit keywords within long articles.
Network to get quality inbound links
Getting high-authority sites to link to your online properties requires networking and making connections. If your site promotes a local, brick-and-mortar business, you should try to get the attention of local news websites because they tend to be connected to larger news organizations; this networking effort may one day lead to quality inbound links. If you can get a more authoritative site to link to yours, whether because you do business with them or some other connection, this step can greatly help your site’s SEO.