Understanding the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and best practices can be challenging for people who aren’t specialists. Defining what best practices are can be an illusory and frustrating pursuit. Google is constantly updating its indexing policies and ranking scheme for search results. It can seem like a daunting task.
SEO Starts With On-Site Optimization
Before we hop right into some best practices, the better place to start is in website infrastructure. Some of you might cringe and think about complex coding. Nope.
When building a house, do you start with the roof or the windows because they look good? No, you start with the foundation. Building a website that is an effective marketing machine starts with the infrastructure.
Having a blog is vital to a successful SEO strategy. It contains content that can be created easily and often. It is also one of the most effective SEO best practices. Blog posts allow you to share your knowledge not just with your industry but the entire online world. Finding inspiration on how to create content specifically for your audience can be difficult without a solid strategy – so we created an SEO guide for you. Ultimately, your content should position your brand as an expert in your industry.
Another element of your site should be an area on your website for resources. Long-form content (white papers, webinars, ebooks, guides, etc.) lives here. This content is your main source of conversions. You should feel comfortable in asking visitors to these pages for an email address. That also means that the content should be exceptionally helpful. Including promotional materials or news about yourself in this area is bad form – steer away from that. Including educational, non-promotional content is the way to go.
Here Are Best Practices For Any SEO Strategy
1. Keep Your Titles Under 60 Characters
Keeping your blog post titles short will ensure the entire title appears in search results.
2. Add Compelling Meta Description (Under 160 Characters)
The description under the clickable title is called the meta description or page description. These descriptions directly influence your click-through rate. Since it’s the second thing people will be reading, consider meta descriptions a broader description of what the content has to offer.
3. Identify Relevant Keywords For Your Company
Your prospects are looking for solutions to problems they are having with their business. Helping them often comes in the form of education and more specifically being there when they ask questions. Most of the time, people type their questions into search engines. So be sure to learn how to do keyword research.
Sharing A Blog For The Best Results
Ensuring that your blog can be shared will help your marketing efforts. This will help create backlinks. A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website.
If you share your blog and others find it useful enough to link to it on their blog this increases your ranking on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). A SERP is basically what shows up when you ask a search engine something.
We wrote another blog post about how to optimize your LinkedIn Profile. One part of improving your profile is to publish content. By identifying relevant groups and sharing your content there, you are releasing your content to a much larger audience (than just the followers of your company page).
Guest blogging can also improve your searchability and relevancy in the topics you cover. However, you will do yourself a disservice if you post your guest blog on low-quality or irrelevant blogs. Your domain and page authority will plummet. Keep it relevant. Keep it genuine.
Pitching well-known publishers in your industry is a great way to enhance the reach of the content you create. Go for it!
SEO Best Practices For The Long Term
Too often, firms abandon their strategies for various reasons. Adjust along the way. Alter what or how you deliver content. But please don’t completely abandon your strategy.
Come to grips with the fact you may not see the immediate results you expect from an SEO project. That’s OK. Just change elements of the strategy and keep moving. As your strategy evolves so will your SEO best practices. We created an SEO To-Do List adhering to best practice guidelines.
If you have struggled with where to start or with other elements of an effective SEO strategy, we wrote the blog for you! Reach out to ask any additional questions at AdEdge at (203) 682-4585 or email us at info@adedgemarketing.com. Have you found that other best practices work well for you?