We are currently living where website traffic is more crucial than ever before for many small businesses. Perhaps you do not see enough of that traffic. Could it be that your website is still stuck on the second page of search results? What can you do?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an efficient way to make your website more visible, which leads to more traffic and more opportunities to convert prospects into customers. It is crucial to be up to date with SEO’s latest trends to have a fantastic strategy.
But first,
A mobile-friendly website is easy to read, navigate, and use on a mobile device such as a smart-phone or another smaller screen.
In 2019, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing, meaning their search engine uses the mobile view of a website to rank the website in search results. If you have a large image that works for desktop but loads slow for mobile users, Google will rank your website lower, because the mobile view had issues.
This change makes sense, given that nearly 73% of internet users will access the internet solely via mobile devices by 2025. Check how effective your mobile site is with Google’s free mobile-friendly test.
Here are other tips on optimizing your website for the new year:
Featured snippets are a great way to get on the first page of results on Google. They appear as the first result on a Google search and offer a highlighted chunk of information, usually in a question and answer format or as bullet-points. They could also be rich snippets, including images, reviews, product prices, and how-to guides.
Currently, you cannot select the content shown in the Featured Snippet for any given search; it’s Google’s algorithm bots that do the job.
But you can still create content that could get picked out for snippets. To do so, focus on question-based queries and keywords relevant to your website. You can use the Google search function “people also ask” for inspiration.
Images are crucial to ensuring that your content is more accessible, attractive, and engaging to users, but they’re equally important in SEO. If the pictures on your website aren’t optimized, take care of it now.
Image optimization is the process of creating and delivering high-quality images in the ideal format, size, and resolution to increase user engagement. It also involves accurately labeling images so search engine crawlers can read them and understand page context. Let’s see a few ways to optimize images:
E‑A-T is a set of Google guidelines used to assess the quality of a search result. You can use this as a check-list to ensure your content is search friendly. E‑A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Expertise is determined at the content-level and not by what the website or organization is. How do we create “expert” content? Find out what your audience is searching for, then meet and exceed their needs. Find the balance between being comprehensive while keeping it simple.
When other experts or influencers in your field are citing you as a source of information or when your name (or your brand) becomes synonymous with the relevant topics, then you are not just an expert — you are the authority. If your content is widely shared, genuinely, and consistently across social media, this is also a sign of growing authority.
Proven trustworthiness is significant. While expertise and authority are factors that boost your rankings, reliability, or rather a lack thereof, is what can quickly tank your rankings on Google. Positive reviews on places like Tripadvisor, Trustpilot, Facebook, Google My Business, and so on are going to really help.
Search Engine Optimization may seem more complicated as technology advances. The days of merely optimizing keywords are long gone. Metrics are continually changing, and it’s critical to stay on top of your place in the rankings. Keeping up with SEO best practices will allow you to create a smart strategy for 2021.
To get more tips for your SEO strategy, join us during our Marketing Minute Live at 3 pm EST every Monday on our Facebook or Youtube.
