Search Engine Optimisation is a life-or-death matter for any business that relies on customers being able to find it through the internet. If you haven’t got your SEO strategy right, you’ll struggle to rank or even turn up at all when your potential customers go looking for you. On the other hand, a good SEO strategy can be the defining factor that keeps you ahead of your closest rivals. If you’re a step ahead of them in the digital world, you should be able to convert that extra step into extra sales. That’s why it’s important to stay current. We’re telling you this because a lot of people don’t do so.
What worked with SEO five years ago doesn’t work as well today. Like everything else internet-related, best On Page SEO practices have a shelf life. Something eventually comes along to replace them or necessitates changes. Often it’s Google itself that changes, with new algorithms requiring new approaches. Google publishes its changes regularly, but far too few people keep up with them. We do, which is why we’re here to give you this advice!
If it’s been a while since you took a “fresh eyes” approach to your SEO strategy, here are some important recent changes and trends you might have missed.
Focus On Mobile SEO
If you remember nothing else about reading this article, remember this. Mobile SEO is the future. The overwhelming majority of people now do their casual web browsing and searching through a phone rather than a computer. You need only look at online slots websites for proof of this. Ten years ago, online slots websites were still in the process that playing on computers was better than playing for real inside casinos. Nowadays, they’re scrambling to keep up with consumer demand to play online slots on their phones rather than computers. Slots websites like Rose Slots CA, which is designed to load properly on a mobile phone, are thriving because of this changing trend. Some older sites are yet to adapt, and they’re paying the price for it. Any websites that don’t optimise their SEO for mobiles will have the same problems as those slots websites. Switch to a mobile-first focus today.
Include Video Content
Google owns YouTube. Because of that, the presence of content hosted on YouTube has more of an impact on Google search rankings than it probably ought to. That’s not to say you should slow your page down by including video content that plays automatically – visitors just find that annoying – but a corporate or product/service-specific video hosted on YouTube and linked to your homepage can work wonders. Keywords are important in this, and your videos should be optimised for search engines. If you’re not sure how to do that, here’s a really helpful guide to video search optimisation. No single factor will give your page or site a bigger boost than including video content if you’re not using any already.
Less Text
This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but one of the best things you could do for your web page is cut back on extraneous text. In the early days of SEO, it was all about distributing keywords throughout lengthy articles. That approach was unsophisticated, and it no longer works as well as it once did. Google knows that times have changed when it comes to presentation, so pictures and videos are just as important as words. As we’ve already mentioned with video content, it’s all a matter of optimising visual content for SEO purposes. Tags and keywords are still crucial to that, but the approach is different. Another plus of this is that your pages will look better when visitors arrive – and that’s just as important a sales aid as anything else.
Better Backlinks
Six backlinks in a one thousand word article won’t do you any good if your backlinks don’t connect to a high-authority website. John Mueller ought to know a thing or two about this, as he’s Google’s chief search quality advocate. According to him, you’ll rank better with just one well-chosen backlink than ten average-to-poor ones. Stop trying to find good link context for every point you make, and focus only on what matters. Use large, well-respected news sources wherever possible. The BBC and Wikipedia are prime candidates but don’t use them every time. Repetition can be as bad as making poor decisions.
Welcome Voice Search
Keyboards and mice are on their way out. That might seem like a very bold statement, but it’s true. Computers are perfectly capable of listening to us – as evidenced by the global success of Amazon’s Alexa – and they’re becoming capable of advanced and sophisticated dialogue. Soon, there will be no need to have a key or click-operated interface at all. You’ll simply talk to your computer, and it will do what you ask of it. In a small way, this is already happening with voice searches. Google has spent millions of dollars on sampling voices and ensuring its software can understand them. At the same time, we’re becoming used to asking Alexa, Siri, or another robotic assistant to perform tasks for us. It’s not difficult to imagine voice searches becoming the dominant way of performing searches within the next decade – and your page has to be optimised for them. Again, you’ll probably have to learn some new skills in readiness for this, but it will be a worthwhile use of your time.
In Conclusion
In truth, voice search optimisation is probably more about the future than it is the present. However, the other four trends we’ve mentioned and relevant right now. You don’t need those huge blocks of text anymore. Take half of it out and include a video instead. Delete half of your backlinks and re-link to websites with better standing from Google’s perspective. Focus hard on making your SEO strategy relevant to people visiting your site through their phones. These are all things that either you or your team should be capable of implementing, and there’s no time like the present. Failing to act now could mean being left behind in the future. Don’t let it happen to you!
