Top 5 SEO Tips For The Aspiring Webmaster
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SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has become a monster over the past few years. Anyone that has created their own website, or had one designed for them, will know all about the headaches that are caused by Google's incredibly complex algorythm used to determine a website's place in the search rankings for a particular phrase.
It began as a minor inconvenience - having to input and organize keywords from related industries & topics in order to ensure that you maintained a high search ranking. This usually comprised of going through every page, adding metatags and then making sure they weren't carbon copies of metatags from another page. At the time, it seemed like a huge siphon on work time & efficiency. Little did we know what Google had in store for the future.
Fast forward to 2016, and the Penguin updates incrementally rolled out over the last half of the decade have made the original method employed by independent users and industry professionals alike completely redundant - and has gone as far as to blacklist sites repeatedly employing the aforementioned method, as people would re-use the same metatags over and over again.
Google's main aim now to is display search results with credibility to users - they do this by assessing the authenticity of the page through measuring a number of different parameters. Such is the secrecy behind the way that Penguin works, there are no guides to definitively tell you what to do to improve your sites' SEO. However, we've attempted to round up 5 of the most useful tips we've been given in our own quest for SEO perfection!
Let us know what you think, and if there are any crucial tips we missed, feel free to tell us!
1. Delivery Engaging Content To Your Demographic
Starting with the #1 SEO cliché, you have to have engaging content on your website to make people want to visit. An RSS feed is an easy way to populate your website with related content without having to create it all from scratch yourself. Blogging is usually the preferred option for those looking to create dynamic, engaging content for their visitors as most users of the internet are at least marginally familiar with the blog format. Pick a subject relevant to your industry, find sources for your information and create interesting content to bring people to your site. (Hint: It's what we're doing right now).
2. Know What You're Trying To Optimise For
One of the biggest mistakes people make when attempting to tackle SEO is rushing headfirst into their CMS systems and inputting loads of related keywords they think people are searching for, without giving any regard to whether 1.the people searching for those terms are likely to complete the aim of your site and 2. how much competition there is in that market. Do some keyword research on your competitors before trying to optimise for a search term that they already rank highly for. You'll find that usually, the highest ranking pages have been created and organised well by a webmaster that knows what they're doing, and they've set the pages out in a way so that they can be modified at any time.
Make sure that you always consider the future when tackling SEO - a keyword you focus on today could become less revelant tomorrow, so you'll need to choose a structure that will allow you to adjust your keywords based on your needs.
3. Set Targets Within Your Reach
You might be like me; the type of person that grew up in the age of computers, instantaneous communication and high speed processors - all great inventions that have without a doubt shaped the modern world, but have also left me with little patience for time-consuming processes and a sometimes unsustainable desire to attain results instantly.
If you are, you'll probably be 'TLDR'ing this article & thinking about how to knock your #1 competitor off their Google search rankings perch overnight rather than using a more calm, considered approach. Unfortunately, SEO really doesn't work like that (and trust me, I tried and failed with my usual "rush first, clean crap up later" approach). You'll need to set yourself an SEO plan much like a business sets itself a business plan when it is first incorporated. Do keyword research on ALL of your competitors on page 1, from the top ranking site to the one all the way at the bottom. This way, if you're not already on page 1 for your search phrases, you can focus on leapfrogging 1 competitor at a time and building on the SEO that you have already implemented.
Sign up for Google Analytics & add the tracking code to every page of your website - it is an invaluable tool that will help you to analyse every aspect of your website's traffic.
4. Understand how Google works, and why it works the way it does
Some people will exert huge amounts of energy in trying to convince you that SEO is a job that should really only be tackled by seasoned industry professionals who "know what they're doing". The truth is, these professionals are usually in the same boat as the small, independent florist down the road trying to optimise their website bring in more business from the local area - they have just spent a bit more time doing it. Every time Google rolls out a penguin update, it's groundhog day for these "SEO Wizards" - they then have to relearn everything they knew & go through the arduous process of updating all of their clients websites to match the new criteria.
So don't be put off by hearing that other business have hired SEO experts to do the job - you can be just as successful optimising your website from the comfort of your own home, if you take the time to understand why Google have made SEO a huge priority of theirs.
Google search rankings used to be determined by a now-defunct PageRank algorythm - this, in comparison to the Google SEO algorythms today, is like comparing a pocket calculator to an iMac. Or possibly Facebook's servers. Pick a small computer to compare against a massive one, and you'll get the picture. However, the smart people at Google HQ soon realised that the criteria that they had originally set to verify a webpage was related to a topic was being abused on a worldwide scale - keywords were being spammed all over webpages without making much sense just in order to increase a page ranking.
So, Google's response to this spamming and abuse of their program was to roll out Penguin, the earlier version of the Penguin iterations studied by millions across the world today. Penguin's purpose was to ensure that only authentic pages could gain higher page ranks - and so they worked with experts across the world to determine a series of metrics that could be measured to determine the authenticity of a site or page.
These include an active social media presence (more on this in the next point), regular updates & improvements to your website, and links going to and from your page to related sites. There are other things to consider aswell, but if you make the aforementioned 3 points your focus at first, you'll find yourself climbing to the top of the pile for each search term you test.
5. Remain Active - Set A Routine, Stick To It
The above point seems to be more applicable to exercise and wellbeing than it does to SEO - but think a bit deeper into it and you'll realise the importance of maintaining an active online profile.
If you create a blog on your website, take some time to share these to your social media profiles. Good content being posted on a regular basis will bring users back to your page, and before you know it, you'll have a great network of contacts in each of your profiles that will bring you more business opportunities every day.
It needs to be noted that there are a couple of wrong ways you can go about building up a social media profile. Firstly, don't spam follow people just to get followers back. Yes, it looks nice having 1000 followers on your Instagram account, but are any of those followers actually interested in your products? Are they involved in your industry enough to be able to refer customers to you? If the answer is no, go back to the drawing board, and take your time in building your profile. Engage with people - comment on their content, host competitions on your page, send non-intrusive marketing messages.
If you follow these tips, you shouldn't have any problem in climbing the page rankings to the top - just remember, patience is key here.
I'll leave you with a quote from Henry Ford - one to remember when you're a high flying webmaster ranking at #1 for all of your preferred search terms.
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