When a business owner finally decides to invest money for doing SEO on his site to earn more customers and high ranks, he will have anxiety about the results and processes. The main concern will be whether he can get back the return on investment (ROI) on time?
SEO Results
According to latest studies, Google receives 100 billion searches a month. In the search results, top 5 results attract 96 percent of all clicks. Therefore rush for SEO is understandable as it converts 14.6 percent of visitors to customers with a high close rate compared to the 2 percent close rate coming from outbound leads. It follows that high visibility before the target consumers is a must to survive in the market as customers need to see the best business providers quickly with a search query. Obviously there is no technology better than SEO to offer that visibility with high ranks without paying anything to search engines.
Why is Predictability of SEO Results Very Hard?
Let us understand that SEO is not a linear process as Google examines more than 200 factors as eligibility criteria for ranking websites. Therefore, no one has a monopoly claim that he got a sure recipe of tactics that can “scale up in the top rank in Google’s search results list.” Adding to the difficulty is, frequent changes in Google algorithm though bulk of them are minor changes. Overall, 500-600 changes happen a year. However, some ranking factors have stood the time. As reiterated by Neil Patel, a Search Strategist at Google content and links pointing to a website continue to be the top considerations for high ranks in Google SERP. This is because quality content resonates with viewers and makes a website stand out from the crowd and make search engines offer them top ranks.
Best SEO Methods for Quick Ranking
Nevertheless we are narrowing our discussion to standard yet effective SEO methods that can take a website to its business goals quickly and ensure best ROI for investors. The success of SEO comes from applying a series of tactics in the shortest possible time after considering a website’s strengths and weakness. A long term approach in SEO can help in making a website elevated as a hero in the market from its struggle phase as a zero. Now, let us see how quickly a site’s search engine rankings can be enhanced. The important action areas in SEO process include on- page SEO where improvements in content, keywords, and links are tried. The keyword research and link building have to be done by adhering to Google guidelines for ethical SEO practices.
Keyword as SEO Starting Point
The starting point for any SEO campaign is the Keyword. This is to ensure proper knowledge of what people are actually searching for a niche and positioning the website as a solution to their search query. This requires the zeal to do extensive research and avoid blunders associated with keyword searching.
Target and the Right Keyword
Avoid the general mistakes people in keyword targeting. Often the failure is in rightly optimizing a single keyword. This further complicates by over optimizing too many keywords or optimizing unwanted keywords.
Always Target one Keyword for One Post or Page
Make sure to target one “main” keyword or topic for each page/post on the website. At the same time, never try to focus on the same keyword in so many pages. Google will rank one of the pages and leave out the page that really wanted to be ranked. To pick up the right keyword, sending a page to a friend with a question “what is this page all about?” will help. This will project the best keyword/topic ideas. Using Google keywords will give an understanding and show the best results are awaiting a keyword. If results vary for a content to be ranked, then that KW will not be a great choice.
Reject “Keyword Unicorns” by Weighing Search Intent
At times juicy keywords crop up during research. Despite a keyword’s high volume, it cannot guarantee a good rank. That is why considering the “intent” behind the search is important. Eg: “Google Analytics” will look like a great keyword to attain a high rank at a first glance. But it is not.
Tips for Keyword Search
Majority of searches for the above keyword Google analytics are from people looking for Google Analytics. But when it comes to the keyword, “how to use Google analytics” the 1,900 odd searches obviously show the demand for a guide and exposes the big potential inherent in the keyword. A keyword’s ultimate value is the ability to deliver traffic and make visitors become paid customers in a process called conversion. Therefore, it is essential to target keywords that are most relevant with “intent.” To fix “keyword unicorns”, ask yourself the question, are people searching for this keyword really buy what you sell? 1. Is there a pathway to convert the traffic from this keyword into leads? 2. Does this keyword offer enough search volume from a business point of view? 3. Is the search volume really high in the target country of customers? If the answers are “no”, then you can confirm that it is a “keyword unicorn”!
How to Rank Quickly Even If Website is New
Look for competition’s keywords to work with a rapid top rank. This is required as new websites with low authority will have to struggle a lot before getting ranked well for competitive keywords. But there are ways to get over that limitation. One way is to walk the extra mile with awesome content and promoting it aggressively at the right places. Use Less Competitive Keywords: Therefore, look for less competitive keywords for unleashing high search traffic. Check difficulty scores: There is enough mechanisms to check a keyword beforehand to figure out its ease or difficulty in ranking by using “keyword difficulty” (KD) score available at Ahrefs Keywords Explorer. Eg: Many keywords related to “search engine optimization” have high difficulty scores. That shows if a keyword of low difficulty score is used, it will rank high.
Write Brilliant Content
Now shift the focus to content and make it really stand out with a great introduction that keeps a reader in the writer’s magnetic field. Here the writer must play out the art of keeping the reader glued to the content with three tips discussed here. This is essential as SEO is a process that works around the content to enhance the website’s acceptability and appeal and make the content perform well in organic search.
How to Get Best SEO Results?
In simple words, best content is all about keeping the copy unique with no duplication of written content or loaning of content from other sources. Google has made it clear in March 2018 that it will slap lowest ranks if found the main content on a web page is of poor quality with no application of mind, time, effort, curation, or value addition to offer genuine content to users.
Switch to Long Form Content
A low rating by Google will be bad for a site’s SEO. To some extent, the problems of many low ranking websites can be solved by switching over to long form content as it will bring positive changes in SEO results. The benefit of longer content is now validated by a survey by Backlinko as it revealed that the first-page result on Google has an average 1900 words. Accommodating quality keywords and content is easy in long content and Google also finds it easy to work with it. The content offered must be rich in quality and justify all statements with facts and stats. It must be authoritative and stand out as an expert before the audience, and Google will endorse it as well-researched content. Plus there must be proper optimization of pages, images, links, titles meta tags and headings. It must be clear to Google what page it should rank for what. That can be indicated via keyword usage and link anchor text.
Content Must Be Matter Of Fact
Since online users are in a hurry they need quick attention to the content. The content must be
- Short and to the point
- Highlight an advantage that comes from reading your post
- Keep the reader tied to the text
In keeping the readers hooked to the content make sure your page answers all queries for which it is trying to rank.