Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way to increase traffic or page views of your website. It can be in the form of optimizing your website for a specific audience or maximizing keywords in an article. SEO makes it easier for sites to rank up in the search engine results page (SERP). This is helpful because it makes your website appear on top of everyone else on the search engine’s search results.

No one has a complete grasp on how to rank their websites. Google, among other SERPS, changes its algorithms from time to time—directly affecting SEO and website ranking due to traffic generated online.

Beating SEO to the Punch

Although algorithms change a lot of times, here are some of the things you should remember to rank your websites. These techniques are staples in SEO rankings and might help your site grow fast regarding traffic.

Improve Click-Through Rate

The Click-Through Rate is the time a user spends on a website. The last thing you would want is for them to leave your page and browse another one. Click-through would also mean the number of clicks your site receives from the search engine that ranks it.

The simplest way to improve this is to use numbers on your titles and descriptions. According to research, most people click on a website that includes a number on its title. Another is to make sure that your content would make the users read throughout the post. Otherwise, they will transfer to another website that would be more interesting for them.

Update, Upgrade, Republish Old Blog Posts

Sometimes, information gets updated; which is common for timeless articles. Timeless articles are pieces that do not have a shelf life. Examples of these are recipes, feature articles, and movie reviews.

Once updated information reaches you, try to update your articles as well. This will help the post rank up again online. Updating information would mean that you will have new keywords and these will help your website climb up the search engine results page.

Create Your Own Keyword

Branding is important in the online world. Through branding, people will keep on coming back to your website as long as it provides what they need. “Creating your own keyword” in branding means coining a word, either made up or actual word, to be your own.

For example, your website caters to recipes, and you want people to keep coming back. Establish a “Throwback Recipe” segment where you will upload old recipes so people can use them at the current time. “Throwback Recipe” will be your own keyword. Now, if people will search for “Throwback Recipe,” the search engines will redirect them to your website links since you are the only provider of the said keyword. This also works when you want to form a habit from your audience. When they need something, they will develop a practice of visiting your website for information. That means more habits formed, more clicks and traffic for the site.

In-Depth Topic Coverage

At the end of the day, what’s most important is the content that you put out to the world. No matter how fancy your layout is or how many keywords you put, it all boils down to the audience’s response to what you upload online. People come back to the things that they learn from the most. In this context, people will come back to your website if they know that you have quality content.

On recent updates, SEO writers found out that Google ranks websites on top of the list if the post has at least 1,800 words in it. This breaks what the current standard of at least 300 words is. In 1,800 words, you will find different keywords and key phrases that people search for the topic covered. Your job is to write in a manner that will cover many topics with one main topic in mind.

Focus on Topics Rather Than Keywords

SEO is all about keywords – words that people search to find what they are looking for. These are one-word wonders that filter all websites and bring you the possible sites where you can see the information that you need. But people change the way they search. At one time, people used the “word plus comma” technique. This is a search technique where you type a word, add a comma next to it, and type another word associated with what you are looking for.

But today, in the era of faster internet, people search for phrases – sometimes even sentences – to locate the information that they need. To maximize the use of SEO, make sure that your website or content contain these possible phrases and sentences so that you will appear on top of the list. After which, work on the keywords that your phrases and sentences might have missed. This technique gives you a broader search filter while giving you an advantage over your competition. — Christian Apostol, SLU