One of the most important things to understand about search engine optimization, SEO, is the fact that it is never a one-time thing. To really benefit from SEO, you need to optimize the site, evaluate its performance, and then do more optimization. Continuous optimization is also how you separate your site from the rest in today’s competitive search engine landscape.
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Unfortunately, not all blog owners optimize their sites on a regular basis. After a while, old SEO tactics like adding a certain density of keywords to a page, will actually harm the site’s overall performance. It is time to implement some quick fixes and basic optimizations to get your blog optimized for the search engines again.
The Right Tags
HTML tags are there for specific purposes. The tag
is for paragraphs, while
The tag at the beginning of the page is just as important. You want to add a concise but meaningful title to the page as well as a short description that crawlers can pick up. A summary of the article’s other content on the page is usually enough to get the page noticed.
SEO-Friendly URLs
Next, make sure you stick with an SEO-friendly URL structure for your blog. Forget about trying to use dynamic URLs to keep them short. You want the URL to fully represent what the page is all about.
In WordPress, for example, you can use %CATEGORY%/%POSTNAME% to display the category of the article as well as its slug as the URL. The URL itself is now readable and crawlers can fully understand the general topic of the page just by scanning that URL.
Local Wisdom
Optimizing a blog for a wide audience is great, but 2018 is the year of going specific with your targeting. While you may be aiming for general readers, it is still necessary to think about the specific target audience you want to grab.
Top SEO companies are utilizing industry-specific or region-specific knowledge for better SEO performance. For example, there’re companies that specialize in regions or cities like New York City SEO, while other agencies focus on specific niches like cryptocurrencies or fitness.
Even adding location info to your website is important. If you are based in New York City, you want crawlers to be able to pick that up. You’ll still be able to reach a global audience, but you are also catering to a more specific segment in the process.
SEO and Beyond
Optimizing your page for SEO also means making it more shareable and ensuring a good user experience. These metrics are now taken into account and they greatly determine your rankings. A site that loads quickly and has a good UX will always outperform a slow and dull blog.
SEO is never a one-time thing. You can’t expect to get good performance by optimizing your site once and forgetting about SEO completely. With the quick fixes we covered in this article, getting back on track with your SEO efforts is now easier to do.