[check out Part I of this article HERE]
Strategy #3: Remember: Mobile first
When you design your website, you have to keep in mind that you should prioritize mobile users first. This is important because the majority of purchases and half of online purchases happen on mobile. With more people owning mobile devices, it has far outstripped desktop when it comes to traffic.
In fact, Google announced in March 2020 that it will now use its mobile smartphone user-agent to crawl websites. This means that Google will now prioritize the mobile version when crawling and indexing your website. If you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, your ranking will definitely be affected.
To optimize your mobile experience, you
need to think first about what your website’s mobile version will
look like. For example, when you’re publishing an article or any new
content, make sure it is readable on smaller screens and the images
don’t take too long to load.
Strategy #4: Focus on topic clusters, not keywords
Google’s algorithm is constantly
evolving. And although keywords are still important, Google has found
a new way to analyze your content. Keywords are not enough to get you
to rank high, you need to look at the content around your keywords
instead. This is also known as user intent.
So when creating your content, you need to know who your target audience is. It’s not enough to determine that you want to reach out to tech geeks. You need to narrow down your target audience to be able to write useful content that is focused on the needs of your particular audience.
Instead of tech geeks, you can target Mac users, Android users, or Apple fans. The easiest way to do this is by using buyer personas to zero in on the issues that matter to your readers.
Another tip is to organize your content
into clusters. Instead on focusing on your keywords, you can arrange
your content into different themes, linking relevant articles
together into clusters.
Strategy #5: Create longer content –but not always
Recent studies show that longer content
ranks higher in the SERPs and gets more backlinks. However, writing
long-form content all the time can be tiring, especially if you’re
doing all the writing and research. So if you don’t reach the
2000-word count, don’t fret. Some users are not looking for long
articles all the time. Remember user intent? Some people might be
looking for a few paragraphs to get the answer that they need.
However, you can’t totally neglect
long-form articles because of the many benefits they bring. There is
no exact measure of how long a long-form article should be, as long
as you are able to give all the necessary information or when you
think you’ve sufficiently answered the user’s question.
If you’re looking for ideas for your
long-form content, here are some tips:
Strategy #6: Invest in YouTube SEO
Video is probably the second popular
form of content, second only to text content. And YouTube is the
number one video platform and the second largest search engine.
YouTube
has more than 2 billion active users every month who are watching
more than one billion hours of video every single day.
So, if video marketing is not part of
your campaign, then you should start considering this platform. You
don’t need expensive equipment to shoot and edit videos — you can do
it even with your smartphone or tablet.
Here are some ways to optimize your
videos and get more engagement:
Strategy #7: Don’t forget your links
Even today, links are important in SEO.
However, you have to focus on the quality of the links instead of
quantity. Links from low authority websites will not bring you any
benefit and might drag you down instead.
To earn high quality links, you need to
use high quality content for outreach and venture in influencer
marketing. Diversify your links. You should not focus on only the big
websites. Smaller websites can also bring you some link juice and
other benefits.
Strategy #8: Do not neglect the technical aspects of your strategy
Even if all the other aspects of your
SEO is doing fine, you might not actually be performing at 100% if
your website is not technically sound. Here are some tips to help you
nail your technical SEO:
Strategy #9: Revise your Local SEO strategy
Before the pandemic, most searches on
Google were looking for local information. Some of the details users
are looking for include local shops, opening hours, phone numbers,
and addresses. Users who are looking for restaurants also look for
online menus.
Unfortunately, this has all changed because of COVID-19. Now people can’t go out and businesses are redesigning the way they operate. Most businesses have switched to online platforms but they still deliver services by going to the customers instead.
So make sure your landing pages and local listings are updated with your new working hours, areas you can cater to, delivery schedules, delivery hotlines, and your list of products or services you can offer this time. Don’t forget to claim your Google My Business and subscribe to a local directory management service.
Strategy #10: Monitor your SEO performance
Analytics and reporting are two
important factors of any SEO strategy. They help you understand how
your efforts performed, which areas need improvement, which campaigns
are not working, and how you can improve your overall marketing
strategy.
Gathering these details and arranging
them in a way that makes sense can be challenging. So here are some
tools to help you in reporting and monitoring your SEO performance:
Summing Up
Keeping up with Google and updating your SEO strategy can be overwhelming. But there’s nothing you can do but adapt quickly, if you don’t want your website to fall behind. Spending time on your fundamentals, such as loading speed, schema, and backlinks, is critical, but you should also set aside some time for creating engaging content.
