The SEO landscape is always changing, evolving and becoming more complicated. Half of the battle is just getting started. The other half is staying up-to-date on best SEO practices and implementing an on-going strategy keep on top of your competitors. Take a quick peek below at a few SEO opportunities you should implement this year. When you’re ready, get your Free Inbound Marketing Assessment and we’ll send you a comprehensive report.
Stop Stuffing, Start Writing.
Back in the day, you could simply stuff your website full of keywords and you’d rank. For you newbies, it was REALLY that simple. But times have changed. While keywords are still a critical component of a sound search engine optimization strategy, relevant content has become king. Search engines are smarter than ever and take into account a variety of factors when ranking your website – including the type of content you’re publishing.
A well-balanced SEO strategy should combine engaging unique content with hand-selected (and linked) keywords. When writing your content, think more about telling a story or having a conversation rather than yelling a short phrase.
Here is what you should do:
- Evaluate keyword density on your website
- Make sure you link keywords to relevant content
- Eliminate bad keywords
Not All Links Are Gold.
Similar to keywords, it used to be best practice to link everything and anything (from anywhere) to your website. Not so much anymore. While it’s still important to build links from a variety of sources, it’s more important to be highly selective in choosing which links to utilize.
But don’t forget about blocking bad links! Most websites have links that are detrimental to their ranking and it’s imperative that those links be blocked. Whether it was intended or not, bad links can mess with your SEO-juice big time.
Here is what you should do:
- Run a link report for your website
- Start building relationships that could yield good links
- Block any bad links or hotlinking
Aim Small, Miss Small.
Whether you’re just starting out with SEO or you’ve been running SEO for years, it’s time to simplify and focus. It’s far too easy to let SEO get out of control and before you know it, you’re targeting everything under the sun.
Additionally, with the advent of geo-local search results, localized SEO is more important than ever. We recommend you evaluate your local SEO presence and how that impacts your high-level SEO strategy.
Here is what you should do:
- Run a comprehensive SEO report on your website
- Hyper-focus your campaigns/keywords
- Make sure your local SEO is dialed in