4 Tips For SEO Success

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It's the method by which you make sure you rank as high as possible in results for organic search.

SEO is a critical aspect of your digital marketing strategy. In today's article, we're going to give you 4 tips to be search engine friendly.

1. Don't Overdo Keyword Density

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. So, if a hundred word article uses the keyword ten times, your density will be 10%.

Keyword density used to be very important for getting good SEO. Search engines are much cleverer now. In fact, overdoing your keywords is more likely to be penalised than rewarded.

Instead of stuffing your content with keywords, make sure to use them naturally and in the places with the most significance:

• as part of the permalink
• in the heading tags
• in the meta title and description
• at the start and end of the article

Search engines reward compelling, engaging, relevant content. Don't try to game the system. Just write the best possible articles for your readers. Drop us a line if you need help with your copywriting.

2. Monitor Your Backlinks

Backlinks are any links that point to your website from the outside.

Search engines use them to help determine whether your website is important and useful. The more backlinks you have, the better. More important is their quality. The more established and authoritative the website linking to you, the more credit you get from the search engines.

Here's a checklist for high quality links:

• it's coming from a relevant website in your industry
• the article containing the link is long and high quality
• the backlink is "do follow"
• the website has a good domain authority and a solid social media presence

And here's a checklist for poor quality links:

• the page has low quality content
• it’s from a website that was penalized by Google
• the website linking to you has a very low domain authority
• it's a widget backlink (these should be no follow)
• you had to pay for it
• it’s coming from an article directory
• the anchor text is over optimized (this can trigger a Google Penguin penalty)
• the link has been automatically generated

3. Don't Ignore Bing

Google is the undisputed juggernaut of search engines. But it's worth keeping Bing in mind as well when you plan your SEO strategy.

One way to keep an eye on your Bing performance is via the plugin SEO Quake. It’s simply a Google chrome extension you download and install. Go to the website you want to assess and click the SEO Quake logo Once the data loads it will compile the results for you clearly laid out in category format.

Here are some quick tips for improving your Bing ranking:

• claim your business on both Bing and Yahoo to max out on local search results
• get your site indexed on Bing’s webmaster tools
• check your meta tags and tag and categorise your website correctly
• perform keyword research and then use the strongest keywords consistently
• connect to social networks
• avoid black hat SEO techniques

4. Remember To Use Metatags

Meta tags are snippets of data you use to tell the search engines (and readers) what your page is about. They include:

• Title tags: the title of your page, which should be unique for every page you publish
• Meta description: a description of the content on the page
• Viewport tag: impacts how your content appears on mobile devices
• Robots TXT: can be used to indicate content that you want a “noindex” or a “nofollow”
• Hreflang tags: allows the search engine to identify the language and country you want content displayed for when you have an international audience
• Content type: impacts how your page is rendered in the browser

Some of them, such as title tags and the meta description, will affect your SEO. Including your main keyword naturally in these sections can boost your apparent relevance on the SERP, increasing your CTR (click through rate).