Search Engine Optimisation is a highly competitive field, and it’s growing more intense with every passing year. So much business is done over the internet that ranking high in the search engines can be the crucial difference between success and failure. This is true no matter what industry you’re in; everyone is trying to get their brand out there and if you’re not topping the SEO charts, chances are you’re going to be left in the dust. SEO isn’t all that complicated, but there are a few SEO tricks and tips that can get you ahead of the curve. Of course, most SEO companies would rather you didn’t know about these, so do your best to keep them to yourself.
1 – Don’t Neglect Your Mobile Site
Mobile sites are often seen as an addendum to the main site; they usually look a little scruffy, and obviously have less time put into them. But the reasoning is, as long as it’s up there, it’s fine, right? Nice to have. Wrong. This type of thinking can seriously impact your SEO. Think about how many websites you check on your smartphone; some days, it’s bound to be far more than you view on your laptop or desktop computer. Ever since 2015, Google has started giving weight to mobile-responsive pages when it’s tallying up its search results. The lesson here? Put as much love and care into your mobile site as you do to your main site.
Don’t get mad at the search engine, get even by implementing effective SEO techniques.
2 – Prioritise User Engagement
The goal should be to keep people on your site as long as possible; this gives Google and other search engines a good overview of how engaging your site is and they use this info to adjust your SEO accordingly. There is no easy way to ensure user engagement. The tried-and-tested method, and indeed the only one that truly works, is to provide meaningful, engaging content. Apart from creating the actual content, you can rely on a few cosmetic rules of thumb. Use short, snappy sentences to keep your content easy to read. Intersperse your text with pictures. Get your most valuable information out up top; don’t hold back, as internet attention spans are notoriously short. Which is a good cue to move on to the next point…
3 – Long Tail Keywords are Critical
The era of one-word keywords is dead. Long tail keywords is one of the most important SEO foundations in 2019, yet few people actually make use of them. They provide a lot more specificity than single keywords, which are bound to appear multiple times across any given online industry spectrum. Though long tail keywords admittedly result in less site traffic than blanket bombing with singles, the traffic that they do bring in is likely to be far more relevant. This kind of audience will spend longer on your site, are more likely to engage with your content, and potentially convert into customers. Either way, long tail keywords ensure you corner your specific section of the market, giving you a better chance of ranking high in the search engines.
