1. Justin Herring – SEO Expert, YEAH! Local
Don’t underestimate the power of quality backlinks – they are still incredibly important for boosting your Google ranking! Set aside some of the minor details and focus on getting more quality links to your site. You should also make sure to use branded anchor text as well as naked URL variations when building and requesting backlinks.
2. Chris Makara – Digital Marketing Strategist
Optimize your site for mobile use. Not only does Google pay attention to how your regular site appeals to readers, but it also assigns value based on your site’s mobile appearance and usefulness. Make sure that your site looks nice for mobile use, but don’t make it too complicated – users want to be able to access information quickly without scrolling through a page to find what they want.
You should also try to limit your use of popups because they can detract from your mobile site’s Google ranking.
3. Felix Tarcomnicu – Inbound Marketer, Monitor Backlinks
Make quality content your priority. Don’t just fill your site with useless info stuffed with keywords – that isn’t going to perform well. Instead, focus on creating high-quality, valuable content for your readers that will answer their questions and encourage interaction. Having a lot of short articles on your site isn’t going to get you anywhere – it needs to be longer and more valuable than what your competitors are offering if you want to boost your rankings. You should also promote your content on social media to get backlinks to your site and to improve your overall SEO.
4. Marie Haynes – SEO Consultant
Take every opportunity to make your site useful to your readers. Use site analytics to find out what pages are performing the best and alter the other pages to bring them up to snuff. Find out what your readers are searching for when they reach your site and then optimize accordingly. You should also be doing competitor research to see what kind of strategies are working for your competition and then see if you can adapt some of them for your site. Finally, as always, focus on quality over quantity when it comes to content.
5. Venchito Tampon – SEO Analyst, SharpRocket
Don’t be afraid to diversify your site. Quality content is the best way to improve your Google rankings, but you should have more than one type of content on your site. Develop your content according to different purposes such as link-building or conversion. Once you have different types of content on your site you can check the page analytics to see how each type is performing so you can make adjustments as needed. Keep in mind as well that your website should be REAL – it needs to be authoritative and trustworthy if you want your readers to keep coming back.
6. Loz James – Blogger and Content Marketer, Content Champion
Write for your readers, not for search engines. While it is important to optimize your website for search engine results, you need to keep your reader in mind as well – your site isn’t going to perform well if you don’t keep the reader in mind. Your goal is to keep readers on your site for as long as possible, so make your content engaging. Whatever your search term is, make sure that your site provides the very best, most thorough answer to the question. Also, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket – don’t rely solely on search traffic! You need to diversify the methods through which you generate traffic – be sure to include social media, paid amplification, retargeting, and content marketing in your strategy.
7. Patrick Coombe – SEO Expert, Elite Strategies
Take the time to do some content cleanup. Go over your entire site with a critical eye to see what looks good and what doesn’t – what performs well and what doesn’t. If your site is loaded with low-quality blog content that doesn’t provide any real benefit, get rid of it! If your content is short or if it doesn’t stack up against your competitor’s content, change it! Take a detailed look at your site analytics to see what pages are performing well so you can mimic the strategies you used for other pages. And don’t be afraid to look to your competition for inspiration! You don’t want to copy your competitor but you can look at their site to see what your site might be lacking.
8. Tor Refsland – Digital Marketing Strategist, Time Management Chef
Always do your research before you choose your keywords! It is a delicate line to walk between choosing keywords that will pay well and choosing keywords that have too much competition. If you aren’t confident that you can create content that will put you at the top of the search engine results for that keyword, choose a different keyword!
Once you’ve picked your keywords, make sure that your content provides readers with a comprehensive answer to whatever question they are asking – your content should solve a problem, not leave your readers looking for more.
9. Tom Pick – Digital Marketing Consultant, Webbiquity
Be smart with guest blogging. Some say that guest blogging is an outdated strategy, but it can work if you do it right. If you can build a long-term relationship with some of the top bloggers in your niche, it will return more long-term results than getting a few high-quality one-off links. When it comes to finding guest bloggers, be smart about your approach. Do your research first to make sure they will be a quality addition to your site and pay attention to their rules for guest posts! If you need more quality content for your blog, keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to go looking elsewhere – you may have some content that you can recycle or add to already on your site! Be sure to keep all of your content updated for the best search engine rankings.
10. Michael Cottam – SEO Consultant, Independent SEO Consultant
Keep an eye on your competitors and think about how your site stacks up, both in terms of search results and the content of your site. You should pay particular attention to your meta descriptions because this is one of the first things potential readers are going to see. Does your competitor’s site mention free shipping in their metadata? If that’s something you offer, make sure to include it in your own metadata!
Perform a search for one of your own keywords and read through the results on the page to see if you can identify any reasons why a reader might click on your competitor’s site over your own site and then make adjustments as needed.
Search engine optimization is constantly changing and evolving. If you want your site to flourish, you need to roll with the punches and adapt to these changes. To help you get the most out of your site’s SEO, follow the tips above provided by industry experts.
