Best SEO Tips 2016 – The world of SEO changes every single year and with each year comes a new “creature” (refering to Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, i wonder what’s next) created by Google and new algorithms that are meant to ensure no one can game the system without producing good quality content and returning good websites to the searchers on Google.
So here are some SEO tips 2016 that we would like to share with you on building a website with great SEO and ranking potential:
SEO TIP 1. Build an authority blog
Readers love authority sites, they are seen as the gurus of the industry and they are the ones people want to learn from. When you post articles on a regular basis with things to share, you gain new readers and extra traction for your website. With good articles comes good incoming links. Other bloggers or business owners might reference your site as a sharing option and this makes your website rank because of incoming link juice! You should also constantly update you blog so that you are on top of the game in terms of content and also being relevant to the times.
If you’re not a good writer, consider bringing in quality writers to write good content and review them. Advise them on topics to research on and guide them along on how to produce good content for your industry.
You could also outsource such a function to digital marketing companies or search engine optimization companies with manpower in content writing.
SEO TIP 2. Writing content of appropriate length for Search Engine Attention
Google loves website that are quality. Quality comes from good research and good knowledge. When you want to share content, thin content is never something that you and i will enjoy.
Most webmasters suggest for the best returns for SEO writing, write content that are 400-500 words MINIMUM. A good article is one that has a good length, probably 1000 words and above. Well sectioned out with proper headers so that Google can better understand them.
Write content that you could add on in the future. News article are good for the moment but evergreen articles are what is best for your website long term Write content that you could build on when you find new information.
A good article would be in the range of 600-700 words, that will get you attention from the BIG G.
SEO TIP 3. Linking out to Authority websites
To be an authority site, you must not be stingy with your linking out. It is always good to share and when you share, you get rewarded.
This works the same way in the eyes of google. When you write an article and refer to other authority sites or to other sites that are high in page rank, for example, Wikipedia! Other sites are also great for referencing, government sites, education sites are some of them.
Of course you should always link to sites that do have value to your readers and when you are making a case study, that would be the best chance to link out to someone.
Share the love =)
SEO TIP 4. Sending links to your pages that are ranked on the 2-5 pages
When doing link building, don’t always just build links to your front page.
Firstly, it looks unnatural. A website with only links to the front page just doesn’t seem real, if you think from a human point of view it doesn’t seem natural, will a machine be able to tell, yes of course!
Secondly, why would you not want to rank for long tail keywords for your internal pages, they bring extra value and multiple new chances for readers to find you and build your brand.
Thirdly, it spreads your keywords across and give you multiple chances to rank, you might rank for the same keyword twice because your front page and internal page is ranking! More rankings means more opportunity to engage your customers and this is one way to bring in more leads and therefore more sales
SEO TIP 5. Make a wise choice in keyword usage
When you set up an article or a page, always have SEO in mind. Keep in mind that you want a title that readers would love and at the same time, search engines would love.
Write for readers but always have SEO principles in mind. Having too general a keyword choice might lead to low SEO value, but having one that is too SEO-ed might annoy your readers when they read the title or content.
Decide what you want to rank for and re-write them for SEO perfection.
SEO TIP 6. Using Keywords in your IMAGES!
Did you know your image name “image.jpg” is one chance for you to include your keyword? Did you know that the alt tag and alt description and captions are few alternative avenues for you to add in your keywords or other keywords, you could also take that chance to rank in google images and therefore drive more traffic to your website. If you are an Image heavy website, that is a lot of opportunity missed out if you don’t your image tags and descriptions to maximize your keywords.
Alt tags are the most neglected and if you are in an image intensive industry, it give you extra leverage and mileage to have keywords in them, also within your descriptions.
SEO TIP 7. Upgrading your servers to improve loading speed
Either you could use plugins to cache your site or you could get someone to look into the codes of your website or to change your servers to one that is more international. A great loading speed is a great way to get Google to rank you higher, you also reduce bounce rates of irritable readers and customers. Some customers just hate it when they go to a slow loading website, they will just give up and go to another website instead and you lose this lead.
Always look to improve the loading speed of your website to best improve the loading speed of the server and this will in turn help you to rank better because loading speed is also one of the key ranking pointers.
SEO TIP 8. Having long tail keywords in your title and descriptions
You might be targeted at a few 2 to 3 word keywords but sometimes by just adding a few more words in front or behind those big keywords, you might be able to rank for long tail keywords that bring you the traffic and attention that you might want and need for your website.
You can add them into your title, your description or just having them in your content to give the article or the page a chance to rank higher for those long tail keywords.
Great SEO value at a steal!
SEO TIP 9. Building relationships with people and therefore build links
If you have friends who are top bloggers or even just any blogger, would it be difficult to ask for a link? No. You could ask for some referencing, you could do a link back from your article referencing them. This is great for both of you because you guys give each other exposure like what friends would do. Work closely and build long term relationship with others in the industry and you might be on your way to great SEO value.
Its always great to work with people who like your rank and are glad to link to you as an endorsement to your brand and at the same time to also brand you in their blogs. It builds both brand and marketing value.
When you are well loved by your vendors or customers, they might also want to link you up because they just love you so much!
Always remember, in business, relationship comes before anything!
SEO TIP 10. Using other forms of media other than just words
People recall images and videos much better than the words that they read, if you are trying to convey something, what’s better than to make it into a short video slide show or into and image slide show so that it can be shared easily and also at the same time help your customers to remember them easily. Even better if you could have some sort of a theme song for your brand and this will lead to even better brand recognition.
SEO TIP 11. Build a list of items to do for your industry (TIP PAGES)
Just like this article of the top 20 best seo tips 2016! You could come up with your own top 20 tips for your own industry and share it with the world. You could re write them every year. You could update them with more content every year. You could keep building on it so that it maintains the best in the world.
List are easy for Google to pick up and rank because it is informative and it gives great value to readers. Google also like to take the most popular lists and put it on their Google website as a listing that is convenient for readers who Google for certain information.
Incorporate them into easy to read list of items and good explanations with nice photos to explain your concept and watch the links come in!
SEO TIP 12. Keep your content updated and renewed
How SEO is done in 2014 might be different from 2015 and 2016. So my top 20 best SEO Tips 2016 would need to be updated for 2017, but lets leave that for the next year.
Always make sure you update your content on a regular basis so that you readers get fresh new perspectives when they come back to your blog. It also works well in the eyes of Google because they have fresh new content to crawl when they do come back every once in awhile. This beats an article that is always stagnant and not having much value to Google’s readers.
Also when you update on the fresh developments of the world, eg. NEW algorithm from Google! It shows that you are serious to keep up to date with information.
SEO TIP 13. Be careful of duplicated content within your site and other sites.
You could use websites such as Copyscape to assist you with checking that there are no duplicated content. Google hates plagarism and they have algorithms to check for that. When you do such copying it doesn’t reflect well on your website and you might get penalized for that action.
Also check that no one else is copying your work.
SEO TIP 14. Build long term evergreen and ever lasting content pillars
Content pillars are what we call it in our industry. Take for example, an article on photography skills.
Photography will never change much across the years. When you write an article about how to take good photos, how to explore great angles, how to take advantage of the sunlight and other natural light. Such articles will never ever grow old. Such articles can be and will be the anchoring evergreen article for your site and for google to continuously crawl and link back to your website.
Content pillars are also great for building your own brand and personal name in the eyes of Google. Rewrite, write more, change, update content!
SEO TIP 15. Remember user experience is king, minimize pop ups and ads
User experience counts for the most effective counters that are non on site or link related. Google knows when your website bounces and bouncing can be quite the downside for your website’s ranking. Try to minimize advertisements because they annoy people. Content must be relevant to what they have searched for. If not they bounce.
Bouncing will make google re-evaluate your ranking. Helping them to stay on your website for various reasons will give you the value towards Google that you are a great website with great user experience.
Now that we have completed the top 15 best seo tips 2016, what do you think of the list? Do you have other items that you would like to share with us? Tommy Koh SEO Trainer in Singapore
Best seo tips 2016