Top 5 SEO Tips For New Websites

The various tactics that make up SEO are constantly evolving.

As the major search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, it can be difficult to know what the best approach is, to ones SEO efforts.

Targeting keywords in your content so that you can rank for them in the search engines, is not like it was in the past. However, keywords are still just as important today as they ever were, and are integral to your organic rankings. It’s just the implementation phase that has changed.

But there are many other things for you to consider, when it comes to the optimisation of one’s site. There are tons of different techniques and tactics that play a crucial role in your site getting traffic. Whether it’s on-page or off-page SEO, such as link building, content creation etc.

With the almost limitless amount of information available, it can be quite difficult to determine what SEO tactics you should use, and which ones you shouldn’t.

That’s why this article was created, it hobbles together, five of the best SEO tips that any new site creator should be aware of. When properly implemented, you should have very little difficulty generating traffic for leads, likes and/or comments.

1. Check Your Competitors

One very effective and valuable tactic is to analyse your competitors, to monitor what they’re ranking for. Just load up one of the many rankings tools available, and put in the domain of one of your competitors. This should give you a list of all the terms they are ranking on.

If you’re unaware of who your competitors are, then simply search for your articles in the search engines. The sites you see ranking the best over a large number of your keywords, are the ones you should be looking at.

Ignore the very large websites, like Amazon, you want to have your sights set on direct competitors. That means, websites like yours, not to big, just small enough to be niche.

Another thing to note is that, just because you find your competitor ranking well on certain keywords, it doesn’t mean you should also try to target those keywords. You only want to target keywords that are relevant to your content. This is just a highly effective way of benefiting off the hard work of others.

2. Link to Other Sites

Most people are put off by the idea of linking to other websites. They don’t like the idea of encouraging their viewers to leave their site.

The truth is, link building, whether inbound or outbound, is a key aspect of search engine optimisation.

The search engine bots are crawling different pages and posts, and like to see posts linking to other posts that are relevant to one another.

That said, you don’t want to just link to any website, be sure to link only to the best quality sites. You want your content to be as helpful and relevant to your viewers. Linking to other websites helps to support your content, making it appear better researched and more credible to the audience.

The end result is a website that ranks higher for the various search terms it is trying to target.

3. Optimise Your Twitter

This is definitely one of the more important aspects of your SEO efforts, if you want to rank high in the search engines nowadays. This is because, in the last couple of years, we’ve witnessed the integration of Tweets into the search engine listings.

Google now indexes tweets, thanks to an arrangement established by those two companies. Today, if you do a random search on a publisher, actor, brand or personality, you are likely to see a timeline of tweets.

4. Choose Appropriate Keyword to Targets

If you’ve been doing any keyword research, then eventually you’re going to end up with a fairly substantial list of keywords you can use. It’s then left up to you, to choose the right ones to focus on. You want a blend of head and long tail keyword search terms.

Head terms are basically keywords that are searched most frequently, and consist, usually of no more than three words. They are oftentimes more competitive and generic. Long-tail keywords on the other hand, are comprised of much larger phrases, usually more than 3 words, and are very specific. While long-tail terms aren’t searched for nearly as much, it’s often times much easier to determine what the viewer is looking for, when searching on that term. It’s essentially the difference between searching for a car versus a Mercedes bens S class.

There are tons of different tools out there that you can use to find keywords, along with their search volume. The most popular of which is Google’s Keyword Planner (you’ll need an AdWords account to access it), others include SEMrush and WordStream.

You can use these tools to trim down your keyword list, so only those terms that have significant search volume and a reasonable amount of competition are left in your pool of keywords to target.

5. Write Engaging Content

One of the most commonly used phrases by marketers is “content is king”. It’s a phrase, I’m sure you’ve likely heard before. And while SEO is made up of many different techniques, creating content that is both unique and engaging can go a long way in ensuring you rank high in the search engines.

Keeping your website up-to-date can also be quite challenging, whether it’s due to you lacking the resources, being unable to measure the true value of your content, or just being out of ideas, as you are required to constantly provide new and engaging content for your viewers.

The fresh factor is a term used by SEOs and search engines and it refers to websites that have unique content that is constantly being updated. The main thing to consider is that the major search engines like Google, are measuring your site based on its content and its freshness, from this, from which it gives your site a score.

You want your site to get the best score possible, which is why you’ll want to provide recent events or news, while regularly updating your content.

When you choose to always update your content, it increases the chance of it being share-worthy. Content that is more likely to go viral, which can have a spiral effort, bringing in more traffic, links and better search engine rankings.

–AUTHOR INFO—

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website www.compuchenna.co.uk