SEO has changed and simplified over the last few years. Google can easily see what most sites are about. Gaming the system for high rankings is generally over. But getting found in natural search ranking and organic traffic for terms other than your brand name, is important. What to do?
1. Researching, and establishing a few relevant keyword phrases that searchers actually use, and then optimizing the site, old content, and new content, brand and links, for those specific phrases is good for the brand and good for search engine optimization. Content keyword usage should be strategically consistent with search engine best practices-no keyword stuffing!
2. Sites must be mobile and tablet friendly. There are now officially more mobile devices than there are people in the world. Google modified its algorithm to favor mobile-friendly sites, and sites that previously had performed well in search completely fell off Google search engine results page (SERP) because their sites weren’t mobile-friendly. Mobilegeddon was Google’s way of acknowledging that consumers are unequivocally going mobile.
3. Sites must be secure. (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. HTTPS helps prevent intruders from tampering with the communications between your websites and your users’ browsers. It's not just a good signal to Google, it's also the right thing to do.
4. Page meta descriptions and titles must not be underused or missing. Your site must have a meta description tag. Search engines use a site meta-description in search engine results. The title tag on each page is a primary keyword descriptor for keyword relevance.
5. Check the speed of your site. If it's too slow to load, this factor is a search optimization negative. Use this tool to help. http://moz.com/blog/how-website-speed-actually-impacts-search-ranking
6. Conduct an SEO audit and initial keyword analysis, to yield baseline keyword and financial information. The audit will give you the information to help improve SEO for natural search. Complete a competitive review of your closest comparable competitors and review their apparent keyword strategies.
7. Make a consistent effort to post and respond to all social media sites. This will get your brand and thought leadership into the marketplace. You can repurpose your existing site content for social media channels. You may have to reformat some content and photos for posting. Review all existing content, including video and audio, strategize how best to organize, index, repurpose, and repackage it for site visitor relevancy. Highlight the most relevant topics on the homepage and in your blog. Links to specific product pages and the homepage should be included in the posts. This will help with your natural SEO and drive more traffic to the site. Video is a powerful tool for these channels as well.
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