Learn some SEO tricks to help your website rank quickly on search engines.
If you have a website or a blog and you do not have the visits you expected, this post is for you, because we will teach you how to use SEO strategies to increase your traffic.
One of the main objectives of your website or blog should be to get organic traffic, because this brings you great benefits. Appearing on the first page of Google search results, generates more visits that you can transform into sales or business.
Although it seems easier to pay to appear in the first search results, you can implement some free strategies to achieve it, known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
In some previous posts we had talked about strategies to promote your business on the Internet for free. Among them we had mentioned SEO, but now it is time to talk a little more about it.
Since webmasters realized that with a website you could make money, they started to worry about appearing on the first page of search engines, so as not to be forgotten among the sea of results. This is how they started to pay attention to the search engine algorithms.
Basically, Search Engine Optimization refers to the strategies and tools focused on positioning a website in the first places of a search engine, be it Google, Bing or Yahoo.
Unfortunately, SEO is not an exact science and many times the best tips from ten years ago are now obsolete, partly due to the same dynamics of web growth. However, despite the changes, SEO will always seek to optimize the structure and metadata of a website.
SEO strategies can be divided according to the on-site and off-site approach:
On-site SEO
The on-site SEO strategies are focused on the browser’s search engine to understand what our page says and what is its main content. Within these strategies we should consider the following:
1. User experience is everything
In a nutshell, today’s search engine algorithm change is focused on prioritizing pages that offer the best user experience.
There is no exact formula to show search engines that your page offers an excellent user experience, what you can do is to offer new, relevant and quality content that provides interesting information, that is clear and well written. This implies using keywords in an organic way.
2. Use of keywords
The search for keywords related to your brand, product or content and then the use of them is one of the pillars of SEO, or at least it was until some time ago.
For a long time, using a keyword that generated many visits in search engines was the only way to tell a search engine what our page is about. So, part of the SEO strategy focused on finding the keywords with the best metrics and then adapting our content to them, although many times it seemed like the words were shoehorned in and made the content confusing and meaningless.
Today, Google algorithms and other search engines have changed and stopped giving the same intention to keywords, in fact now you do not need to use the same word over and over again in your content, you can substitute synonyms or use similar semantics.
In short, today it is more valued to not force or abuse keyword use; it is best to use them naturally and organically.
But don’t get the wrong idea! It is still very important that you spend time looking for good keywords. To have excellent results you can use some tools like Google Keyword Planner or Semrush that will help you evaluate the metrics of a word related to your brand or product.
3. User search intent
Another very important part of choosing keywords is the user’s search intention. When you decide to use a keyword with very good metrics, search for it in Google and make sure that the results are related to your business niche, because it can happen that searches related to this word have nothing to do with your content and therefore appearing in the first places is useless, because users will not enter your page.
It usually happens with keywords that are part of a song or movie. If something similar happens to you, it is best to use another word related to your content, even if it has less traffic.
4. Retain your visitors
Part of the new criteria that search engines evaluate today is the time that users spend on your website, because it was very common for a page to be positioned by deceiving the algorithms a little, but in the end did not offer the information or content that users were looking for. So today the time visitors spend browsing your page is very important.
The best thing you can do to keep your readers hooked on your site is to offer quality content that responds to their needs. It is very helpful to enrich your content with multimedia such as images and videos.
Evaluate what type of content you need according to your business or product, for example if you have a cooking blog it is easier for people to stay longer on your page if in addition to the written recipe you include a video.
Off-site SEO
Off-site SEO refers to all the strategies that you use to position your page, but that do not have to do with the content or design of the same. In fact, they refer to tools that are implemented independently of your website.
Improve the authority of your website
This is one of the most valued parts by search engines to determine your position in the results because it counts the amount of external links directed to your page.
In the past, only the number of links was valued, so webmasters would look for the most links, no matter from which page. However, today quality is valued more than quantity, because your website is better positioned if it is referenced in pages of the same, or higher, authority. In this way, a website cited in other high authority pages ranks better.
How can you get these links? The truth is that it seems somewhat complicated, if not impossible, especially for new websites. However, there are certain strategies that can help you to introduce yourself with peer sites.
It is at this point that social networks will help you enormously, promoting your website and content through them is a quick way for your customers and peers to get to know you, so implement a marketing strategy focused in these channels.
Participate in forums related to your niche, this way you will meet people with whom you can collaborate, either to complement your services or products or to share solutions to common problems, ideally you can bring this collaboration to your website.
In conclusion, today SEO strategies have turned to think more about the user, that person who is behind the screen and who enters our site to satisfy some need. So, create your content thinking about this person, share your content on social networks and collaborate with your peers, and this will surely bring you results.
Don’t get discouraged if you don’t climb positions quickly, because these strategies are medium and long term.
But tell us what you think of these changes, do you think they are more advantageous for new websites? We love to hear from you!