Top 5 SEO Techniques

The forever-changing nature of SEO has to be the hardest part of it. Google, for example, updates its search engine hundreds of times per year. That means, there are several updates each day. For this reason, even the most experienced SEO specialist can get confused with the new changes and implementations. 

Keeping track of all the changes is not possible. It’s better not to worry about everything. What you want to be more understanding of, are the trends, and biggest SEO techniques. This way, you can ensure you stay above your competitors. Over 70% of web surfers never go beyond the first page of a search engine results page. This makes getting a position on the first page is so important. To do that, however, you’ll need to know what the search engine wants. 

Anyway, in this article, you’ll learn 5 common SEO techniques, that you should know. These are techniques you can’t do without. 

1. Mobile Friendly Site

A mobile-friendly site or a responsive site (whichever term you prefer) is a must-have nowadays, as the majority of web surfers get onto the internet via their mobile devices. 

You want a website that can adapt to smaller displays and resolutions so that you get better rankings in the major search engines. Just be sure to check or test the site on various devices of differing display sites (netbook, mobile phone, etc.). Sometimes you’ll notice subtle differences depending on what is rendering the screen. For example, iOS, Chrome, and Safari, at times, have been known to display the same website differently. 

2. Focus on Featured Snippets 

In today’s SEO arena, you can’t do without featured snippets. For this reason, you should make it a part of your SEO strategy. If you don’t know what featured snippets are, well basically, they take up position zero, which is situated at the top of the listings.

Featured snippets have their pluses, which means, users can go through your website, fairly easily. However, to acquire a position zero, you will need to optimize your content properly. 

3. Create New Content

This is definitely one of the more obvious techniques. The reality is, that many webmasters get so caught in all the various aspects of SEO that they forget all about creating new and original content. This is compounded by the fact that over $4 million posts are published every day. If you don’t want to fall behind the competition, then you need to be constantly and consistently creating content. 

Whenever you add new content to your site, you also have the perfect opportunity to implement the best SEO practices for it. Focussing on content quality, subheadings, new keywords, and much more. 

Your visitors will also see your latest content as being more relevant than your old stuff. For a lot of people, when they’re searching for information on a particular subject area, they always take the time to look at the time and date of content.  

Another thing for you to consider is freshness as a ranking factor. The more information you add to your website, the more likely the major search engines are to index your posts. 

4. Update Old Content

Any old data you have lingering on your site must be updated on a regular basis, especially if your content is based on time 

When looking at the results page for any query, you’ll see a bias towards later content. Thus, if you want to remain consistent within this space, then you must constantly update all the posts on your website. 

One thing you are most likely to notice is the little traffic spike that typically occurs when you add new content to your site. 

If you’ve had your website for any real length of time, then I’m certain you won’t need to look hard to find content that requires an update.

The best way to go about things is to locate certain pages on your site, ones that you think need some updating. Then proceed to update, by doing research, possibly, from external forces. 

If you use WordPress as your content management system, then that’ll make it even easier for you to locate certain pages on your site that are no longer performing as well as they did. From here, you can best determine what needs refreshing. 

If you would like to find those pages on your site that no longer perform as well, use an audit plugin. There are many of them around I recommend you check them out and use the one you feel is best suited for you. 

5. Prioritise User Experience

When looking at SEO holistically, it’s very important that every tactic you choose to implement, improves the user experience of your site, in some way. This is primarily what SEO is all about. In the coming years, we can expect it to be even more important. 

When we look at the Core Web Vitals, we see new ranking factors that are designed to boost the user experience of your website. In addition to that, there are other things for you to consider, such as bounce rate, click-through rate, and much more. You’re objective should be to get users onto the site and keep them there, by ensuring they are always stimulated. 

Below is a list of some of the UX factors you should consider:

Mobile Friendliness

This is something I have already touched on, but a site that is responsive will yield the best results. 

Navigation

You want a site that is easier for users to navigate through, to find the information they are looking for. 

Site Speed

Make sure your site doesn’t take an age to load your various site pages. 

Content Quality

Do your site posts contain broken links or outright poorly constructed content?

By taking some time to enhance these areas of your site you will ensure more people visit your site and spend more time on it. As a multiplier, the major search engines, such as Google will more easily locate and rank your content. This may mean better positions overall when it comes to search engine rankings.