It’s no secret that Google is forever updating its SEO algorithm. In fact, over the course of a year, they may make upwards of 500 changes! SEO means optimizing your content so it shows up more often in search results. With so many changes to navigate, it’s easy to miss something. And when you miss something with SEO, your content might as well be invisible. But if you get it right, you can reap the benefits of increased traffic, which leads to more conversions, improves lead generation, and boosts sales. And every business wants more traffic, leads and sales, right?
Below are some of the best SEO hacks to boost traffic on your website.
1. Stop Using Huge Images on Your Website
Sounds too simple to be true, isn’t it? But it is basic. A website that takes a long to load is often dumped by the user like a hot cake. Make sure that your website loads quickly.
2. Optimize the Click Through Rate
Links or content, the more ranked your website becomes in the pecking order. Google automatically places your results higher if your keywords are being clicked more than your opponents. So try to create great content, AdWords which makes the users click it more often than not.
3. Be Creative with Keywords
Use social media platforms to discover trending keywords. Social media is in a faster metamorphosis than you can imagine. Every day new keywords are being made replacing the older ones. Learn to keep an eye out for the relevant changes before your opponents do so.
4. Link Other Websites with Relevant Content
Link to other websites that churn out quality content. In this way, you automatically get linked to the customers also using that particular site.
5. Use Readable URLs
URLs with 4-5 phrases separated by short dashes are the way it’s done these days. Avoid using numbers in the URLs as it confuses the consumer as well as the machines. Stick to readable URLs for that easy click to be materialized.
6. Create Your Own Keywords
When you do that, you are basically trying to be the sole player in a race. If anyone searches for that particular keyword, you are the only one that going to come up in their search list. Imagine where the click would land if you were the only one in the result list.
7. Use Https://
HTTPS, on the other hand, uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) through which it encrypts data, making it difficult for any program to piggyback it and create havoc on the user’s system. Due to this, Google, over the years has been giving more preference to the secure site in line with its policy of creating a secure environment for a user.
8. Optimize for Voice Search
These days more and more mobile websites are using voice search. Don’t be left out in this era of technology advancements on a day-to-day basis. It’s important to be updated and stay on the same page as most of your opponents.
9. Publish Content With At Least 1,800 Words
The more words your article has, the more chances are there that it will be preferred over a short article. So, if you are the short and sweet-type, maybe link-building isn’t for you.
10. Use the Google Search Console to Get More (Targeted) Traffic
The Google Search Console is one of the best SEO tools on the market. Unlike most SEO software on the market, the data you get through Google Search Console comes straight from Google. The console can help you analyze the user behavior over a particular keyword and this analysis can help you increase traffic.
Read Also: Different Ways to Market Yourself Effectively
11. Write and Optimize your Website Content
OK, so you’ve found a keyword. Awesome. Now it’s time to create a piece of quality content around that keyword. Weave a magic story around the keyword so that anyone who starts reading it is bound to finish it off, rather than leaving it in the middle.
12. Include Visual Media
Content with multimedia (like images and video) garners a lot of clicks. This type of content tends to rank better than content that’s 100% text. This is because the human brain and eye coordinate with visuals much better than text.
13. Long Descriptions
Add longer descriptions to your content. Before viewing the videos on your page, the user should have a fairly good idea of what to expect from the video.
14. Make your Content a Winner
Awesome content leads to an awesome click-through rate, which in turn boosts sales. Get the user to stay longer on your page. If your users love your page, they’ll spend more time on it. The longer they stay, the longer will be your turnaround ratio.
15. Rank for Featured Snippets
A little more than 11% of search results have a featured snippet. These are the results that show up on search engine results pages typically after the ads but before the ranked results. They’re usually alongside an image, table, or video, making them stand out even more and putting them in an even better position to steal clicks from even the highest-ranked results.
16. Create Evergreen Content
There are 2 great ways to show search engines that you have in-depth, authoritative, evergreen content on your site: Stick with long-form content. Longer content (at least 2,000 words) tends to outrank shorter content. Use LSI keywords. These are keywords or phrases strongly related to your post’s topic. Great content has a higher chance of being shared again and again, and so, new users are added because of it.
17. Focus on Mobile-First Indexing
First, what does “mobile-first indexing” even mean? Quite simply, it just means that Google now considers the mobile version of your site to be the primary version of your site. If you don’t have a mobile site, your desktop site will still be used. But, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly your rankings may take a hit; remember that user experience is a VITAL component.
18. Understanding the Audience and User Objective
One must understand what a user is expecting when he searches for a particular query and then provide them with a relevant answer in a simple and understandable form. The preferences, tastes, and interests of the audience are ever-changing and it is really important to adapt to these changes quickly. No matter how well the content is written on your website if it is targeted toward the wrong audience, it will not be able to bring business to the company.
19. Check Your Website Speed
It’s advised to take Google’s page speed test. You must check the speed for both devices – desktop and mobile. If the speed is less on either or both, then you must report it to the developer and ask him to make necessary changes in order to increase the speed. A webpage loading at a slow speed is bound to lean away from your user to your opponents’ sites.
20. The Customer Comes First, Not the Search Engines
In the midst of this entire hullabaloo regarding Search Engine Optimisation, it’s imperative to keep the focus on your readers and not on those ranking numbers.
The fact is, your readers are the people who will engage with you, share your post, buy your products and services, and it doesn’t work the other way around. Churning out content for the purpose of making search engines happy is a wrong approach because these engines conduct random spot checks on websites, and your credibility matters a lot.