SEO—it’s a constantly evolving concept that can be difficult to get a handle on. After all, there is so much advice out there, much of it conflicting, that it can be hard to know where to start. In this post, we’ll let you know which areas to focus on first.
Once you’ve got those covered, we have an infographic from SEO Tribunal for you to look at. Between this post and the infographic, you’ll receive actionable information that will help you streamline your SEO efforts. Are you ready to learn more?
Start at the Very Beginning
Why? Because it’s a very good place to start. But beyond that, if you’re overhauling your SEO efforts, it makes sense to start with your website. After all, this is your prime piece of internet real estate. If you can make sure that it has enough curb appeal, you’ll get a lot of interest in and traffic to your site.
Adjust Your Keywords
If you want to improve the amount of traffic you are receiving, you’ll need to audit your site and potentially make some tweaks. For a few years now, experts have been advising us to use long-tailed keywords or phrases. Ideally, these should be four words or more in length. As we move into the era of voice search, this tactic becomes even more important.
Optimize for Voice Search
At the end of 2017, 13% of homes in the United States owned a smart speaker. Not impressed? You should be; it’s estimated that this percentage will increase to 55% over the next few years. Even if we discount the prevalence of smart speakers, voice search is still a phenomenon that it is wise to prepare for. By 2020, around about half of all searches will be conducted by voice.
Fortunately, preparing for this is pretty simple. You are going to need to brainstorm and think about all the potential questions that people might ask regarding your site or products. Having a comprehensive FAQ page should be a high priority to cater to those using voice search because most people will phrase the query as a question. The closer you can match the phrase they’ll use, the better.
Where things become a little more difficult is that voice searches typically contain more words than your average written search. People can phrase their searches any way they want to. It’s a lot easier to ask a question than to type out a search query, and this muddies the waters a little when it comes to keywords.
Why? Because the range of keywords therefore increases. Here is where using long-tailed keywords or phrases is going to come in extremely handy. Phrases can convey the context of a sentence a lot more effectively than a single keyword can.
Search engines have become a lot better at understanding the context of a query, so it makes sense to use this to your advantage when choosing the right keywords to use.
Another tip for preparing for voice searches is to use natural language. Think about the words, phrases, etc., that your target audience will use and incorporate these into your site. Consider using some local slang where appropriate.
Next up, consider beefing up your content. You should have a site with at least 2,300 words of content on it. Make sure that the content is expertly written and edited to prove how high quality your site is to both users and search engines.
Overall, the most important lesson we can teach in this regard is that SEO evolves over time. What worked today may not work tomorrow. You need to keep an eye on the changes and be willing to adapt your strategy over time.
Infographic URL: https://seotribunal.com/blog/stats-to-understand-seo/
