An ultimate guide to the latest SEO practices

2019 proved out to be a big year for the SEO as it’s the same year when google rolled out its famous BERT update. It had some businesses and SEO practitioners running around scared but as soon as the dust settled and people understood what it actually meant for the SEO, everyone embraced it. With year 2020 heading towards its end, it’s a high time to review your SEO strategy and ensure that it is in line with the latest search engine guidelines.

So, here is our round up of the top SEO practices that everyone needs to adopt.

A Holistic Approach Towards Content

Google’s BERT addressed a lot of challenges and concerns faced by the users and at the same time it gave us a hint about what trajectory the search engine giant is going to follow moving forward. The content still reigns supreme after the update but what you need to know is, what kind of content are we looking at if we are to aim for the top spots against a search query.

For starters you should emphasize more on covering as many related topics to your main topic as possible instead of forcing keywords into your content. Google is now more focused on ranking the content based on context than blatant use of keywords. A lot of SEO experts have gone as far as suggesting that keyword research tools just might become irrelevant in the near future.

So, if you haven’t already, revamp your content strategy and make it more user-intent-centric. Try to find out what exactly your target audience is looking for in a certain piece of content.

Update the Content

We have all heard of the “spray and pray” approach and how it is a futile practice in paid marketing but paid marketing is not the only area where it’s applicable, it also applies to the SEO and content marketing. You cannot keep writing new and fresh content over and over in hopes of ranking your website this way. Fresh content is always encouraged but what about the content that’s already published on your website?

Here is the problem, no matter how good your content is, it would become irrelevant after a while. What you can do is, update your old content that is already indexed. You don’t have to completely revamp or rewrite it, a little addition would do the trick. It’s a classic case of hard work vs smart work.

Backlinks & Internal Links

As much as we would like it, we cannot rank our blog or website solely based on content. A major part of the SEO is getting quality backlinks from high domain authority websites. But again, what kind of high DA website should we get the link from? Well, it depends more on the industry you are working in than the domain score of the websites you are seeking link from.

For instance, you are advertising fitness equipment and think that it’s a good idea to get featured in Time magazine but getting a link from the Time magazine would not help you as much as getting it from some fitness related website with high domain authority. Sure, getting featured by a prestigious name like Time would give your brand a good mileage but getting a link from a relevant website with a high DA is always a better idea.

Furthermore, your website also needs to be well linked internally. This practice does not require you to spare tons of marketing budget but it could make a real difference in your SEO strategy. All you need to do is link your content to the similar information that you have already published on your website. For instance, if you are writing website content about SEO services in UAE then you can link it to another SEO related blog on your website.

Keep your technical game on point

You have written the best content, acquired all the quality backlinks but none of that is going to matter if your website fails to offer a good user experience to the visitors. Now there are several factors like, website loading speed, mobile responsiveness, design, UI, content and customer service that come together to form a good user experience.

You need to ensure that your website ticks all the above boxes. Having a strong content game does not make up for the technical faults and vice versa. 

Take away message

The SEO we know today has come a long way since its inception. You cannot bombard the search engine with keywords to rank your business on the first pages anymore. One might believe that SEO is getting more and more difficult by time when in reality it is getting simpler so long you know what Google and other search engines require from you.

Get in touch with us today to discuss an exponential growth through SEO and digital marketing.