Scary Good Marketing: Top 5 Best SEO Tips That Are Too Gourd Not To Share
Scary Good Marketing: Top 5 Best SEO Tips That Are Too Gourd Not To Share
SEO, also known as search engine optimization, is so important to any marketing strategy – whether you’re a small business or large corporation. This fall, we have 5 of the best SEO tips that are too gourd not to share with you.
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Use Targeted Keywords
Keywords aren’t just words; they can also be phrases – and they are essential in your SEO strategy. If you use the right keywords in the right places, you’ll start seeing your website climb up in
search engine results in no time. There are 4 types of keywords every marketer should know, including:
- Commercial
- Transactional
- Informational
- Navigational
One thing to be mindful of, however, is to not fall victim to keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of overloading or “stuffing” a piece of content with keywords in an effort to get that content to rank higher on search engine results. While ranking higher on search engine results is your goal, keyword stuffing can kill your SEO and come off as spam to your potential customers/
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Write for Humans First, Search Engines Second
When writing content, keep in mind that the people you are writing for aren’t robots – they’re humans. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t pay attention at all to your ranking, just don’t make this your primary focus. Why? Because bots don’t pay you – humans do. Bots don’t buy from you – humans do. Search engines bring people to your site, but it’s you that keep them there.
At the end of the day, you want to write content that will not only rank on search engines but will also speak to your target audience. The best of both worlds. Here’s how:
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Know Your Audience:
What are they asking for and what do they want? What problem do they have that you can solve?
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Understand Search and User Intent:
Knowing what questions are being asked is a good start, but you also want to know why they’re asking them. Are they ready to buy? Do they need more information about your product or service? Do they need help deciding?
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Use the Correct Format:
When writing content to better serve your customers, you should put your content in a user-friendly format that will keep them engaged. For example, bullet points, infographics, videos, photos, etc.
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Use a Conversational Voice:
In your writing, write like how you’d talk to them if you were sitting across from them.
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Show Your Personality:
Content without personality an come off as dry or boring. One of the best ways to write for humans is to write like a human yourself.
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Use Keywords Naturally:
This goes back to avoiding keyword stuffing or coming off as spam. Keep it natural and to the point.
If you are able to master the art of writing for both humans and search engines, then you are well on your way to SEO success for your business.
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Improve Existing Content
A lot of times when people write content, they publish it and forget about it. However, keywords and subtopics that you maybe used five years ago aren’t the same keywords and subtopics you should be using now. That being said, going back and updating content with subtopics, keywords, backlinks, better readability, and more, are good ways to get started with improving your SEO strategy. There are several benefits improving your existing content has on your overall strategy, including:
- Improves your click-through-rate (CTR)
- Allows you the chance to fix any grammar or spelling mistakes you made in the past
- Shows Google that your content is fresh and new
- Improves the accuracy of your content
- Improves the overall freshness of your website
- Shows value by removing any broken links or other problems with your old content
- Gives you the chance to add newer, better links, resources, and more
- Improves how frequently Google indexes your website
- Optimizes your content for the right keywords
- Repurposes your content for more backlinks
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Remove Anything That Slows Down Your Website
According to Pingdom, the ideal website load time should be no more than 2 seconds. Faster pages result in a better on-page user experience. If your website takes too long to load, it’s possible the customer will choose to go elsewhere. Not only that, but slow pages also impact your SEO rankings both directly and indirectly.
While page speed is known as a direct ranking factor, it can also indirectly impact your ranking by increase the bounce rate. Take note: the faster your website, the better your ranking.
Here are some things you can do to improve your site speed:
- Delete Old Plugins
- Clean Up Your Code
- Optimize and Compress Images
- Reduce Redirects
- Leverage Browser Caching
- Improve Server Response Time
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Focus On User Experience
One thing we’ve touched a lot on throughout this blog is user experience. For a user, there is nothing worse than having to try navigating a website that you can barely use. As preciously mentioned, a user will likely not bother continuing to try accessing your site if they get frustrated by the load speed time. Not only that, but there are other things that can make it a frustrating experience for users:
- Dead Links
- Error Messages and Pages
- Messy Site Structure
- Too Difficult to Read
- Outdated Design
- Irrelevant Content
- Not Mobile-Friendly
- Unoptimized
To provide a satisfying user experience that will also satisfy Google, you want to focus on making your website:
- Easy to use, understand and navigate
- Provide direct and relevant information
- Have a professional design that is accessible in all browsers, including mobile
- Deliver high quality and credible content
If your website doesn’t create a positive user experience, then your SEO is likely to suffer too. The search engine is looking for users to click on one result and stay there for a while. This proves to Google that the link they clicked on has provided helpful and informative content that they’re interested in. You want that to be your website so you can get those SEO rankings you strive for. If you find that people aren’t staying on your website and your SEO is suffering as a result, then follow the tips and tricks above to create a better user experience through your website.