The world of search engine optimization is constantly changing. If you’re still adopting the same SEO strategy as this time last year, there’s a few new things you should be implementing into that strategy. However, ensure you’re at least implementing these 5 SEO tips to get your site ranking higher on the search engines.

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1. Removing any assets that slow down your site

Page speed is critical in SEO, if a website takes a long time to load, the chances are people are going to click away. This is called a bounce rate, and search engines are well aware of it. The higher your bounce rate, the lower you’re going to rank on the search engines.

Data from Strange Loop shows that a mere one-second delay in page load time can yield a massive 7% loss in conversions, and according to eConsultancy, “40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load”.

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2. Write for humans first, search engines second

The old way of SEO focused on singular keywords and pages. This resulted in a lot of website copy being very keyword focused in an attempt to rank higher on search engines. Nowadays, search engines focus more on how people engage with a particular brand, product and service.

Try introducing long-tail keywords into your copy, instead of attempting to manipulate search engines with repeating specific keywords in your website copy.

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3. Have a way to track your website analytics

After defining your search engine optimization goals clearly, it’s crucial to have the software in place to track whether what you’re implementing is working or not.

Some tools to track your website’s analytics are: Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Crazy Egg.

Ideally these would be set up before you get any visitors to your site, however it’s never too late to implement.

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4. Write unique and relevant meta descriptions for every page

A commonly overlooked SEO tip is having a well-crafted meta description for each page on your website.

The meta description is the first thing people see when they see your site listed on search engines, so it’s important to be clear and concise. Search engines penalise for duplicate content (copy and pasting), and the same applies to meta descriptions on the pages on your website, although your ranking may not be penalised immediately it won’t be beneficial having duplicate descriptions over time.

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5. A readable URL structure

Having a simple, readable URL structure will make it easy for users and search engines to define the content on the page they’re visiting. For example:

It’s best to use this:

https://cullendigital.com/blogs/top-5-seo-tips-you-can-implement-today

Rather than this:

https://cullendigital.com/blogs/23455

Those numbers don’t tell users and search engines what to expect from the content on the page. Therefore, having a simple and readable URL structure will make your pages more search engine-friendly!

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