Understanding SEO is very much important to increase the traffic by significant numbers. So, here are a few tips to improve your SEO traffic:
- Keyword research: Keyword research is the most popular way of separating most commonly searched words by people. It helps the website to rank.
Keywords can be both short-tailed (1-3 words) or long-tailed (more than 3 words). Short-tailed keywords can draw more traffic while long-tailed is famous for less competition. So before starting with research you must decide which keywords you want to use.
The long -tailed keywords are more profitable because it drives more targeted traffic and hence decreases bounce rate. And this increases the chance of getting higher rank in search results.
Many free keyword search tools are available like Google Trends, Keywords Everywhere etc.
- Title tags: Title tags lets Google know what your page is about. So it should be uniquely written for every article and should be rich with relevant keywords. The keywords should be placed in the beginning of the title tag.
In search results, user can see only 66 characters of the title tag. So it is suggested to keep the title tag within 66 characters including space. Or else when user will get to read half title of the article in the search result he will lose interest and will move on to the next search result.
Make sure to put your brand name at the end of the title tag with a pipe between the keyword phrases and brand name.
- Metadata: Metadata is the combination of title tag and its Meta description that is shown to the user in the search engine result page (SERP). If the user liked that Meta description and feels that the website can satisfy his queries then only he is going to click on the title tag to read the entire content.
Metadata should not exclude 160 characters (including spaces) in length and must contain at least one keyword used in corresponding title tag. Because the search engine highlights the keywords if the user has searched for the same keywords. This increases the click-through rate and consequently creates a chance to get higher ranking in SERP.
- User friendly content: Before reading the entire content the readers’ first search for the key information by scanning through the content. And if they are get what they are searching for they will read the content. So the content must be design in such a way so that the readers can easily skim through.
Make sure to use sub-headings and bullets. Break the entire content into short paragraphs (5-6 sentences). Instead of using difficult words, the content should be kept as simple as possible.
But that’s not enough. You need to put together all the relevant information in your content. Search for the questions that usually readers ask and try to answer them in your content. This will attract more traffic and Google will think that your content is more relevant under that niche. Consequently it will higher up your ranking.
- Increase loading speed of website: If the loading speed is longer than 3 seconds then almost 40% of visitors will leave the website. Among them 80% will never return to that website again. If Google recognise that the loading speed of your website is very slow then it will harm your ranking.
So, first start with minimizing the HTTP requests. One such request is made for each of the elements (images, stylesheets, and scripts). Large number of HTTP request, the longer the page will take to load.
Google Page Speed gives your page a score out of 100. If there is a problem it tells you what you need to fix. Google revealed that there will be an upcoming page experience update that will enhance the existing Core Web Vitals metrics.
You can catch your websites by using plugins like W3TotalCache which will increase your load speed. Every time new visitors will see a cached version.
Moreover you website will be visited by people all over the world. By having content on servers all over the world through CND your site will load faster as your site will be in closer proximity to their location. best tool for remove pdf password.
- Add an alt tag to the images: This is a very popular SEO practices to increase traffics. Adding alt tags to images have a lot of advantages. It helps the search engine crawlers to index the images properly. It helps in web accessibility. If someone is using a screen reader, the images description (alt tags) will be read out loud to give them a better understanding of on page image.
Popular screen reader cut the alt tags after 125 characters so it better not to exceed this limit. Try to add targeted keywords in the alt tags but avoid stuffing it with keywords. Alt tags should be written in such a way so that it can convey the proper message that relates with the image.
- Have a mobile friendly website: It has been found that almost 60% of the daily searches are done from mobiles. On February 26, 2015 Google announced that mobile friendliness is added as a factor of higher ranking in search engine result page (SERP). So, it has become a standard to have a mobile friendly website.
Having a mobile friendly website means your website must align itself according to the screen size and should be readable.
Moreover, people uses mobile to do small searches like ticket booking, buying items and lots more. So, if you are not having mobile friendly website that means you are losing more than half of your traffic.
You can be sure how mobile friendly your website is, you can use Google’ free tool called Mobile Testing Tool.
- Optimize for RankBrain: RankBrain is the latest Google’s algorithm updates. It is also the third most important ranking factor in Google while the first two are your content and link outreach. It searches through the content to find out what the page is about and how the websites relates to the keywords people searched for.
Suppose you are searching for a solution and the page that ranked #1 could not satisfy you. You will move to the next one and keep moving until you find the page that satisfy you. Rankbrain will notice that you stay in that website for longer time and will identify it as a more relevant article for that particular search. This will help the article to go up in ranking.
So, you need to understand the audience’s intent behind every keyword. You need to make sure that your content covers every point that the user may ask and make them stay longer on your website.
- Landing page optimised for SEO: The homepage is important but a landing page can initiate a strong relationship. A landing page must be well designed, have useful and informative content, have a call to action.
To have an SEO optimized landing page try to include long tailed keyword throughout your landing page but do not overuse them. The landing page must have a nice looking headline, a secondary headline, a small but relevant description, a testimonial, a call to action option, links from your existing content to your landing page and good quality pictures. Use email outreach for getting more links. There are plenty of pre-build email template for blogger outreach available on the web. The landing page must also have some professional modern layout.
- Use infographics: In present day infographics are more popular because they makes the complex information easy to understand. In infographics both the part i.e. “info” and “graphic” are equally important. Just focussing on graphics will not do, you need to back them up with quality facts.
A quality infographics can help you to grow your traffic 12% faster. Because user loves infographics because it makes the boring topic enjoyable and understandable.Some free websites to create infographics are visual.ly, Venngage and Canva.
Conclusion:
Ranking in search result is not the only criteria but ranking on the first page is what the bloggers want. Higher the rank higher will be the traffic. All this can be achieved by optimizing the website for search engine. SEO increases the blog’s potential. It helps the user to find your blog more easily. So having a proper understanding of the tricks and tips of SEO is very much important.