It’s a bit of a jungle out there when it comes to SEO best practices.
Yes. There are thousands of different tweaks and tricks you can (and should) implement in order to optimize your website content and increase online visibility. But what happens when you don’t have time for ground-breaking changes and just need a quick ROI on your SEO effort?
Well, it’s 100% possible. Here are 4 tried and tested hacks that will improve your organic ranking immediately:
Hack #1 – Back It Up with Backlinks
I know I’m not revealing any secret here.
Backlinks are one of the main keys to raising your online visibility and internet “street-cred,” so to speak because it shows that your site has quality content that is valued by others.
Otherwise, why would they share it on their own websites?
The more you can get other sites to link to your site, the more Google sees you as legit and starts ranking you higher on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
But how can you get other sites to link to your site without paying money or waiting for months? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
1. Pinpoint sites that are influential to your target audience and pitch yourself as a guest blogger.
This is so easy, you wouldn’t believe just how easy. I urge you to go ahead and send 5 emails right now.
You know the drill: “Hi <name>, I love reading your blog, especially your last post about <last post title>. I would love to collaborate on an exclusive article about <unique subject that can interest your audience>. What do you say?”
Remember, you don’t only sell a certain product or service. You have become, over the years, a subject matter expert in your field.
Writing about your area of expertise is not only a great way to generate more traffic to your site and improve SEO, but it will also help you become a true online influencer.
2. Your own blog and social pages are also the perfect fertile soil for your backlink growth.
Don’t have your own blog yet? It’s not too late to create one.
Websites with blogs generate 97% more indexed links than blog-less websites. That’s why a few million blog posts are published every day.
So start building a backlinks strategy into your blog.
How?
Emma Knightley at Digital Marketing Institute suggests creating a weekly content round-up on your blog.
Do this now:
Run a Google search for the top professionals in your niche. Reach out to them and ask a few questions that would interest your blog readers. You now have materials for a well-rounded thought-leadership article that would intrigue your audience and will be shared by those top professionals you interviewed.
Boom – the backlinks start rolling in!
This “I scratch your back, you scratch my back” model works.
I know, because we do it on this blog.
3. Make the most of social media.
Yes, this is also a great way to generate backlinks to your own website, but it’s still important to focus on providing quality content.
Knightley advises focusing on customer success stories and case studies that use real examples and data while showcasing customer satisfaction.
This type of content highlights your company’s expertise and the value you bring to others.
You can also post brand-awareness commercials, about us videos, etc.
We did it recently with this nice featurette.
Hack #2 – The FAQ Trick That Yields Results in 30 Minutes
This one is a real doozy. It will give you results within 30 minutes and all it takes is about a day’s work to set up.
What is it and how does it work?
Simple: Utilize an existing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on your site or set up a new one.
Be smart about it though. Do the research and try to pinpoint what your potential clients are interested in when it comes to your product/service/field of expertise.
You can go to SEMRush and check what users look for. It literally takes a few seconds.
When you build your FAQ page using Google’s FAQ page schema, it can do 1 of 2 things:
- Display FAQ-rich results on the SERP, which looks like a drop-down menu below your site’s main search result.
It looks like this:
- Display your site’s content as part of Google’s answer cards, which sometimes pop up on the SERP above the organic search results, in response to the specific question that was asked in the query.
It looks like this:
This hack works best for websites that are already on page one of the SERP and bumps them further up toward the top. But even if you’re not on the first SERP, FAQ building advances you a few steps further towards the plate.
Hack #3 – Keep Your Content Fresh and Up to Date
In order to rank higher on Google’s SERP, you need to create new content on a regular basis. Fresh content is more readily picked up and boosted by Google. It’s a fact.
But here’s a neat trick – in order to keep it fresh, you don’t necessarily need to keep writing new web pages and blog posts every day.
Simply check back on your existing content and make sure that it’s up to date. It takes much less time to make a few tweaks to existing blog posts than to write a new one altogether.
So “Best meal kits for vegans in 2019” turns into “Best meal kits for vegans 2020.” And if you can implement some SEO best practices you learned from this article – even better.
Another way to keep your content evergreen and make sure that it’s boosting your site’s SEO is to check your URLs. One of the mistakes marketers often make is putting the year and month in the URL. Google’s watching eye scrutinizes the web for outdated content and will consider your website obsolete once the inscribed date has passed.
Hack #4 – Get your on-page SEO in tip-top shape
“Big-picture” strategies are important when it comes to improving SEO. But it’s equally important to not get sloppy on the basics when you set up your web pages.
So, you’ve got your list of keywords, made sure they are incorporated into your web copy in a tactful way, at the perfect density. You even avoided keyword stuffing.
Now, go back and consider which keyword will be your primary one for the rankings related to that page.
Done? Great! Now take a look at your URL structure, headline, and meta description.
Make sure that these are all optimized. For instance, URLs should be short and simple, headlines and metadata should be unique, and don’t forget to include the relevant keywords in your alt tags on images. These high-res, nit-picking tweaks are the final touch that’ll improve your position on the SERP.
Here’s what I suggest:
Each time you publish new content on your website, make a checklist of on-page elements. It’ll help you keep on top of these little SEO boosters.
Conclusion
There you have it—4 hacks that you can get started with (and complete) today. Not only are they fairly effortless to implement, but they will also give your SEO an immediate boost.
Let’s quickly rehash:
- Backlinks – there are many different ways to generate more backlinks, so get started with a few of these tactics.
- FAQ – you probably already have them on your site, and if not, it’s simple to create them.
- Fresh content – update your existing content on an ongoing basis.
- On-page SEO – don’t get sloppy on this; a little effort goes a long way.
If you have any questions or would like to get more tips, contact our SEO specialists by filling out this form.
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