We have visited SEO a lot in our blog and its always a hot topic. Over recent months Google has released numerous updates to its search algorithm heavily affecting many millions of sites. We at identity are constantly bombarded with spam from so called SEO companies promising to rank your site. With on page / off page optimization, link building, white hat, black hat, blogging - it’s a scary world out there.
The truth is that the core of SEO hasn’t changed that much, there are still key techniques that will enable you to get ranked on your keywords. As we have previously said in our blog content is king! So if you’re serious about your SEO (and you should be) you’re going to have to cut through the noise and start focusing on the core factors that will help you rank higher.
Quality, frequent content
The key to content is frequency and “thinking outside of the box”. If you think of your content in two categories, general content and quality content. Your General content is your blogging or news content, your quality content is your landing pages (we will discuss landing pages in next month’s blog post), SEO pages and to earn inbound link from quality sources. Now we it’s easy to talk about the fact you need to create content but finding the time is very hard, we understand this but its key to marketing your site effectively.
It may be an idea to plan your content so that you are prompted to produce content frequently and for different areas of your website.
Thinking outside of the box for your content will help you produce interesting and engaging text. For example, if you are baker and you produce a flour buying guide, with a link to download a handy PDF. By giving valuable tools away you'll position yourself as a trusted resource. People link to resources, not adverts.
Link building is not good, link earning is the way forward
We all know that Google still likes links, however, now its careful as to which links count towards your SEO. A number of factors affect your ranking, but the amount of links to your website from other popular websites is one of the primary factors in determining your rank. Before Google updated their algorithm it was common practise to pay to get your website listed in directories, post of forums, swap links and generally build links any way possible to keyword rich content. The new way is all about linking to quality content and useful solutions that are shared across social media and blogs. You need to truly earn these links from trusted websites, personalities and bloggers with your great content.
Mobile Web Optimisation
Mobile web is increasingly getting more popular, blogs are arguably the best form of SEO. If these two are not mixed correctly on your site and you have a blog that doesn’t work on tablet or smaller devices then your website is unlikely it will rank in mobile search results. If you’re blog isn’t optimized for the mobile web it’s unlikely anyone will read it in the bathroom with their smartphone -- get the idea? Responsive design is becoming more popular as it enables your whole site to adapt to a mobile device screen without having to manage two websites. We will be adapting our site to a full responsive design soon (watch this space).
Conclusion
There are lots of other factors that attribute to your SEO however, mastering the above will hold you in good stead for strong page rank. Good luck!
