As a branding and design studio that specializes in lead generation, website design and social media marketing, we're always searching for new, innovative ways to boost SEO. SERP rankings have a major influence on web traffic and conversion rates, and as such, the art of SEO has become increasingly complicated and competitive. Recently, our social marketing team found The Definitive Guide to SEO in 2018, which is a guide created by SEO expert and Backlinko.com founder Brian Dean, that outlines tips and methods for dominating Google's search results in 2018. We found it to be super helpful and wanted to share with any digital marketers or businesses looking to enhance their online presence!
RankBrain is a machine learning system that helps Google sort through its search results. It measures how users interact with search results, taking click-through-rates (CTR) and dwell time (how long a Google searcher spends on a page) into account, and ranks them accordingly. Watch this video to learn how you can improve your website's dwell time.
One industry study found that organic CTR is down 37% since 2015 due to the amount of answer boxes, ads, and carousels crowding Google's search results. This makes SERP rankings all the more competitive and means that your result must scream "CLICK ME!" or risk being ignored. To enhance your organic CTR, check out this infographic or watch this video on boosting organic traffic.
Publishing pieces that are at least 2,000 words. This will ensure that you cover everything a Google searcher needs to know about a topic, and studies have found that longer content, such as guides and long-form blogs, outrank shorter articles on Google.
Adding latent semantic indexing (LSI) to your content. LSI keywords are words and phrases that are strongly associated with a page's topic and help boost SERP results. To find LSI words related to a specific topic, you can use a free tool called LSI Graph or scope out the "searches related to…" section at the bottom of Google's search results.
With that all said, content and links are still Google's #1 and #2 ranking factors. In fact, the number of sites linking to a page reportedly correlate more with SERP rankings than any other factor. Therefore, producing quality content that other sites link to is key to enhancing your SEO.
Google announced last year that they were switching to a mobile-first index, meaning that the search engine will use the mobile version of a website's content to rank on the SERP. As such, you should ensure that your website performs optimally across all devices, including responsive loading times and design on both desktop and mobile. To see if your site is mobile friendly, check out Google's free testing tool.
With the rising popularity of voice-activated search tools, such as Siri, Alexa, Google Home, etc., it's important to optimize your content for voice searches. An easy way to do so is by including a question (and answer) in your content, as majority of voice searches are question based. For example, when Google receives a query like "Alexa, what time are the Yankees playing tonight?" it usually picks a page that contains both the question and answer.
Bloggers and journalists love unique data. If you can connect them with stats, surveys or industry studies, you'll have a notable increase in links.
Encourage comments on your site—Google has been quoted saying, "Comments are better on-site for engagement signals for SEO than moving to social." In other words, adding a comment section to your site can help significantly with rankings.
Need help with your SEO or any of the marketing materials listed above? Let us help. Book a free consultation with Lúgh Studio today.