Traffic is a lifeline for online business, and most sites get visitors through search engines. To get constant and targeted traffic from search engines, you must follow the current best SEO practices.
On average, a site gets over 60% of its traffic from search engines, and in search engines, over 90% is from Google. So, if you want continuous traffic from Google, follow Google’s SEO guidelines.
Content marketing plays an essential role in getting traffic from search engines. Here, you publish content with a focus keyword, Google crawl, and store information on your page on their index, and when someone searches for your keyword, Google shows your page on the search page.
And you get traffic for free.
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it helps you optimize your site so search engines can understand it better and send you relevant traffic.
What are the Best SEO Practices?
SEO is a continuous job, and the current best SEO practice can become an outdated one. A well-optimized post might be irrelevant in the future.
Search engine optimization starts from the moment you conceptualize an idea, and it never ends, even after months of publishing the post.
Following the best SEO practice is easy and can help you rank high in search engine result pages.
In this blog post, I will give a few best SEO techniques that can help you in your search engine optimization.
1. Add Main Keyword in URL
Let’s start at the top of your page.
Your post URL is the address of your post. It should be unique to your blog and must include your keyword, preferably at the start.
Keep the URL short, meaningful, and avoid using filler words, for example, I, am, for, it, etc. And use one keyword per URL.
I see many bloggers keep post titles the same as the post URL. This practice is not good. The long title means a long URL, and it may dilute the value of the keyword.
You can change the post title any time, but not the URL. So keep the URL short and concise.
2. Write a Compelling, Eye-Catching Post Title
This is another essential element of your post. On Google search, people will judge your post based on your post title and meta description.
If your title does not meet the search intent of users, they will not click on it, even if you rank first on the search page.
Your title should be relevant and match with the search intent to get clicks.
As searchers click on your title and spend time on your page, Google will know your post is rank worthy, and they will promote you.
Use eye-catching titles that make searchers curious about your post.
Do not use false promises or clickbait, as it will not help you in the long run. Clickbait is more common in news industries. Here, the publishers change the news title often with a catchy phrase to attract visitors.
Be careful with it.
3. Write a Meta Description
The meta description is the description that search engines show on their search page below the post title. Searchers read the meta summary, and if they like it, they click on the post title.
Write a meta description that captures the essence of your post.
Many experts suggest writing a separate meta description and inserting it in an SEO tool so search engines can see it and display it on the search page.
I recommend that you insert this description in the post content as well.
Think like a searcher.
Many times when I search on Google and find a meta description in the search result, and I click on the link, I do not find a continuation of the meta description on the page. It is irritating.
It is not a pleasant experience.
4. Add Your Keyword to the First Paragraph
It helps a lot in ranking the content.
If possible, try to insert your keyword in the first paragraph. It helps Google find what your post is about.
My posts that have the keyword in the first paragraph rank faster than the posts that do not.
Do it naturally and don’t force keywords in the first paragraph. If the content is good, relevant, and solves user problems, it will rise in search engines.
If not the first paragraph, try to add your keyword to the second paragraph.
5. Write Unique and Useful Content
This is the most critical component of all is your content.
Your content should be unique, useful, and provide value to users. Providing helpful content is an essential SEO practice.
The content should not be similar to any other published material, even on your site.
Do not copy or plagiarize any content. Google is smart enough to catch these practices, and once you lose Google’s trust, ranking high in Google search will be difficult.
For your posts, your URL, title, meta description, and content must be unique and relevant.
6. Use Optimized Images
I see many bloggers use un-optimized images in their blogs.
Use an optimized image for your blog. Optimization includes small-sized images, using ALT text, and a description of the image.
Google does not see your image, but they can understand the ALT text. If you are using your keyword in the ALT text, it will prove your content’s worthiness. Don’t use a file name such as file01.jpg, file003.png, etc. Instead, use a meaningful name and add ALT text after uploading images in WordPress media.
Most bloggers use just one featured image in their post. Use many pictures per post and give them meaningful names and ALT text. It will help visitors enjoy and understand your content, and search engines as well.
If you have a bigger budget, hire a designer and use a custom image. Users like custom images and these images get more shares on social media.
While updating blog posts on our other blog, we switched stock images with custom images and saw the difference. We started getting more visits from Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.
7. Use SSL to Secure Your Blog
This is almost mandatory. If your site is not secured, visitors will get a warning before coming to your website that the site is not secure. In this case, it is likely that the searcher will not visit your site. SSL is a Google ranking factor as well.
These days, installing an SSL certificate is very easy. Most hosting providers provide it for free, and you can install it with a few clicks.
It is a default feature of a few hosting providers. I have purchased Bluehost’s WordPress hosting, and I did nothing to activate the SSL as it was activated by default. Therefore, this blog was secured from day one.
If your blog is not secured with SSL, secure it now.
8. Make Your Blog Load Faster
Site loading speed is one of the 200 Google ranking factors.
If your site loads slowly, your visitors may not like visiting your website, and Google will also demote it. Slow loading is a poor user experience.
Optimize your site for fast loading.
You can check your site speed from the following sites:
The following techniques can make your site faster.
Use Cache Plugin: These plugins store a copy of your blog on your server and serve when they are called. It reduces the load on the server. I recommend you use wp-optimize or wp-rocket.
WP-Optimize is available in a free and premium version. WP-Rocket is a premium plugin, and you must buy it to use.
WP-Optimize is a three in one plugin; it is a cache plugin, database cleaner, and image optimizer. I recommend you use this plugin. WP-Rocket lacks image optimization features, so you have to pay to use this feature.
You will find many experts recommending the W3TC plugin. It is a useful plugin, but I faced many problems when I deleted it. I do not recommend this plugin.
Use CDN: Using CDN can reduce your site loading time. Your hosting servers may be located in one place, and if the visitor is far away, the site response will be slow. CDN stands for content delivery networks, and these servers are spread throughout the world.
If you use a CDN, your visitors can access the site closest to their location, and it will be faster.
I recommend you use CloudFlare and MaxCDN.
CloudFlare offers a free plan with no bandwidth restrictions.
Using AMP: Mobile sites are slower than the desktop site, and mobile speed optimization is complicated.
So, Google developed Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), which creates a lightning-fast light version of your site.
Although AMP helps you get a faster site, you lose CSS customization. Your beautiful landing pages may not show up on mobile devices after implementing AMP.
Many webmasters converted their sites to AMP and lost revenue, so they reverted.
Consider these points before moving to AMP.
9. Use Compressed and Scaled Images
If you are using many images per post, the size of the pages can be large. It is best to use scaled and compressed images.
I don’t recommend you use a plugin to compress the image.
You can use the following free services to compress your images:
First, I compressed the image using the TinyPNG tool two times. It will give you around a 70% reduction in size.
After reducing the same image using iLoveIMG, most times, I get another 70% reduction in size.
I don’t think you will get this much reduction using any other plugin.
Resize the image. If you require an image with a size of 100×200 px, there is no need to use a 500X1000 px image. It will only increase the loading time.
10. Use a High-Quality Theme
A theme plays a vital role in your SEO. A high-quality premium theme will load quickly, will not create any technical problems, and provide a good user experience.
Free themes can be buggy, slow down your site, and can break with WordPress updates as they sometimes do not keep up with the fast WordPress development cycle.
Use high-quality premium themes. One such theme is the thrive theme builder.
Massilah.com uses this theme, and I recommend you use the same theme. This theme allows you to design your blog as you wish with zero coding knowledge.
11. Get High-Quality Backlinks
This is an essential SEO practice.
A few years ago, it was easy to get backlinks. You can write articles and submit them to article directory sites and get backlinks. However, now it might attract search engine penalties as they don’t consider these links as organic.
Therefore, if your blog is new, write great posts and let your peers know about it. You might get links.
You can try guest posting to get links.
It is difficult to publish guest posts on well-known blogs, especially if you are new. Try publishing guest posts on less popular blogs, and when you have decent traffic and popularity, you can try with more prominent blogs.
However, the best way is to write an article so useful that webmasters get compelled to link it even without asking.
12. Internal Links Structure
Internal links on your blog post help visitors understand the content and provide them with a delightful user experience.
This SEO practice reduces the bounce rate, and it affects your ranking in google search. If you link a new page from an old post that has high authority, the new post will get a rank boost.
You can use the anchor text so search engines can understand the linked page.
Try to use as many links as possible with exact anchor text.
You will find many plugins for internal linking; however, I don’t recommend using any. Most times, their recommendations are not helpful. The blog is yours, and you know the content; use your judgment to link content. It will be more useful.
13. Link to Authoritative Resources
Try to add a few links to high-quality, authoritative sites from your content. It will add value to your content, and readers will appreciate it.
Many bloggers avoid linking out. Remember, if you don’t link out, you should not expect to get links back to your content. Be generous and add links wherever it is required, and when you feel it will provide value to your visitors.
However, do not take part in a link exchange or linking out spammy sites. The outgoing link should be relevant and valuable.
If you link to other sites, those site owners may return the favor by linking you. These links are organic, and they will help you rank in search engines.
14. Do Keyword Research
You should do keyword research before writing content. Here I will give you a single useful and simple trick.
Go to the Google search bar and start typing keywords. As you complete your keyword, you will see in the drop-down many similar keywords. Note them down and include them in your post.
Now search the keyword and scroll to the bottom. You will find “Searches related to…”Try to include those keywords in your content.
Another method to find the keyword is using tools. These tools can provide you with the information on keywords, such as the volume search and level of difficulty to rank. The best free keyword research tool is “Google Keyword Planner.”
If you can afford it, the following are excellent keyword research tools:
15. Publish High-Quality, Unique Content
Content is the king.
Publishing high quality, unique, and in-depth content is the best SEO practice. If you fail here, all SEO strategies are of no value.
Visitors are looking for in-depth information. Your content must satisfy the needs of your audience.
If they are not happy, they will leave the site with no conversion, and your effort to bring them onto your site has failed.
Search engines are after users’ satisfaction. If users are not satisfied with your content, you will lose your ranking in the search engine.
Your document must be error-free and correct. If you are not a native English speaker, always edit your content with a native English speaker.
Use grammar checking tools to enhance your writing and remove errors. I use ProWritingAid, Grammarly, and readable to edit my blog posts. ProWritingAid and Grammarly are integrated into Google Docs, so using them is easy. I hope readable will provide this integration soon.
I recommend you use these tools to enhance your writing and keep your posts error-free.
Remember, no one likes content with errors and incorrect sentences. It is a poor user experience, and it will hurt visitors’ faith in you. High-quality content will help you get backlinks with minimal or no effort. Webmasters link to high-quality content that provides value to their users.
Many SEO experts claim that you need to write at least 2,400 words to get a top rank. Therefore, many marketers write articles with a length of over 2,400 words, even though the article’s message was clear in 500 words.
Don’t do this intentionally. Artificially increasing the word count will lower the quality. You may get a temporary boost with lengthy posts. However, because of their low value, your visitors will reject the content, and so will search engines.
Write an in-depth article, and don’t count the words.
Assign one keyword per post and do not optimize for more than one keyword. Doing so will dilute your post and may not get any of the keywords you are trying for. Do not write many posts to target the same keyword. This again might hurt your ranking.
Use your keyword multiple times in your content. Use it in headings and subheadings; however, avoid overusing it. A 2% keyword density is okay to go with.
Use synonyms and different variations of your keyword. This is a crucial SEO strategy.
16. Make Content Readable
If your content is easy to read, your audience will enjoy reading it. This helps in longer dwell time, and so the bounce rate will be lower. A lower bounce rate increases your search engine ranking.
Your content should be readable to audiences. Use shorter sentences and brief paragraphs. Avoid using fancy words, idioms, and phrases.
Make your content skimmable by using headings, subheadings, bullet points, etc. Keep paragraphs and sentences short.
You can use hemingwayapp.com to check the readability of your content.
17. Keep the Content Fresh and Updated
This is the second-best SEO practice; the first is publishing great content.
Your content must be updated and current to rank high in Google search.
Information can get outdated quickly, and those pages will provide no value to users. You have invested your effort into publishing those posts. Updating them will not take more than 10-20% of your effort, and your content will skyrocket again on search pages.
Delete obsolete information and add updated content to make it super useful.
A live example of this strategy is Wikipedia. Though the site is not exquisite, it has useful and updated content, and so it gets links without asking for it, and people cite it on their websites.
18. Remove Low-Quality and Duplicate Content
If you have low-quality content on your blog, you can delete those posts.
Search engines hate duplicate content. If your blog has duplicate content, search engines will face problems with deciding what content they should show to searchers.
Panda is a Google algorithm that affects blogs that have low-quality content. Your low-quality content can attract this penalty.
Duplicate content can also affect your ranking. Duplicate content is content that appears more than one place on your blog.
I am talking about your duplicate content; however, if you copy someone else’s content and post it on your blog, it is also duplicate content. This is illegal, and you may get in trouble. There is no SEO benefit of this content as search engines know which content is original.
Remove duplicate content from your blog. If you have written any similar content posts, merge them, and create one more in-depth post. You can redirect deleted posts to the live one.
Please understand that these days, search engines are smart. Even if you rewrite your content and publish it again, search engines will know that it is plagiarized content, and they will demote your content. Avoid this practice.
19. Avoid Stealing and Plagiarism
These days, search engines are brilliant. If you copy from any site or plagiarize the content, they will catch you, and your content will not rank. You will lose the trust of search engines.
Readers are very smart, and they will feel that your article is not genuine.
This is an illegal and immoral practice, and you must avoid it.
Don’t steal content from another website. You must not copy content from other websites and publish them on your site. This is an unethical practice, and it can lead to search penalties. For strong on-site SEO, post original content.
Summary
SEO optimizes your content so the audience can enjoy your content, and search engines can understand it. It is the best method to get a consistent and free high-quality audience. Best SEO practices are not secret. Most of us know them; the question is how consistently you follow them. Search engine optimization is not a one-time task; it is an ongoing job, and this is the best SEO practice. Publish useful and in-depth content and keep it fresh and current. Make your content so useful that publishers are compelled to link it.
Which SEO practice do you find useful and effective for your blog growth? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
