Life of every SEO could be so easy. It could be, but it’s not, because of the Google algorithms that are continually changing, and, as a result, drive you crazy. These changes are made to improve Google user’s experience, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. However, what is within your reach is an adaptation. If you want your website to be successful in 2020, you need to optimize your site accordingly to the introduced changes. If you follow these strategies, your chance for success will be significantly increased, and your website will generate much bigger organic traffic.
Keyword research
A keyword analysis is crucial because it shows you which words you used, which words you should and shouldn’t use. You can check out the pages of competitors, to compare their style, their writing patterns, and what makes their website rank higher than yours.
Using software that analyses content is recommended for it. You can do it manually; however, it takes much more time. Thanks to the analysis, you can find, and change pieces of your content, which are undesirable for search engines. The software can help you with content length as well.
You should make sure that your pages aren’t too long. People don’t have time to read 2500 word articles. They want to find the answer to their question as soon as possible and move on. That’s why you have to make sure that your content is relevant and on point. Avoid writing extended articles, just for the sake of content length. Only that can bring you desired results.
Use grammar checking software
It’s likely that content which is easy to understand for humans is also easier to understand for algorithms. To make sure that your articles are easy to understand, you should check them using grammar checking programs, for example, Grammarly. Software like that often gives you practical hints when it comes to writing. Because of these tips, you’ll be more likely to satisfy your readers and write user-friendly content.
Focus on answering visitors questions
That’s the purpose of your website after all. People enter your page to find information about a specific problem or question. Make sure that your content meets this requirement, or else there is no chance for success — pages, where people can find an answer to their problems, that are provided with easy to understand language, are ranked much higher.
Also, you might have noticed, that on top of search results, there is “people also ask” feature. It’s a list of three questions that are strictly related to the phrase you typed. It is very helpful because you can get valuable data basically for free. If your content answers to the questions from this SERP feature, there’s a chance that your page will be ranked higher. The excellent idea is to provide a brief answer and provide a link to the separate article, where you explain these related questions in more detail. Repeat this process a few times, and you might even become an authority in a specific area. That will get you tons of benefits.
Don’t forget to link strategically
Once you have written a useful and comprehensive content piece, you are closer to the goal, but there’s still some work for you to do. The more pages you have about a specific topic, the more likely it is that Google classifies you as an expert within a particular area. There’s something more to that, though.
In order to gain authority, your pages have to be linked together. You can achieve it by using relevant anchor text.
There are a couple of benefits of internal linking. First of all, they spread the Page Rank algorithm to the other linked pages, which increases their chance of ranking up. Also, one way for Google to examine your webpage is checking your links. It allows Google to understand what your website is about.
The anchor is very crucial because it has a unique function – identifying the topic of the linked page. That’s why you should rarely use phrases, such as “see”, “click here”, “check it” or “learn more”. Generic phrases like these are not descriptive, and, as a result, your page is less likely to be ranked higher.
Another thing that you should avoid is using the same anchor always. This tactic is not recommended. If you do that too often, Google will penalize your site, because it’s considered as a manipulation, that only purpose is to bypass Google algorithms.
It is not possible to find out what are the newest changes in Google algorithms. That’s why continually optimizing your website for the search engines is so crucial. If you do that, your website will sooner or later appear on the first page. And that’s what is the key to success for your company.
