- Toyna Chin, San Francisco, CA
Top SEO Tips For 2021
SEO isn’t always about going for the biggest search terms and trying to compete with the biggest names as soon as you get started. It’s about knowing your audience and trying to provide the content, information, and overall service that your customer wants or needs. Here are the top SEO tips for 2021 to drive traffic to your website.
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Write For Humans First And Search Engines Second
The Google algorithm is always getting smarter and uses input from humans to align closer with the way we search. There’s no loophole or magic trick that will outwit these search engines, so there’s no point in trying. Instead, write for humans first and search engines second.
Your priority should be to give your audience what they’re looking for when they come to your site, and that will only happen with engaging natural content. Anyone will notice an obvious keyword-stuffed piece, so it’s better to fit them in where they make sense. Let keywords drive informative content. A company like Unravel SEO can help you to do this.
Use Targeted Keywords In The Right Places
Your motivation ought to be humans first, search engines second, but the focus of SEO is always keywords. Keywords are what gets to the heart of what site visitors and Google are looking for by isolating common search terms. This means keywords should be at the heart of what you do with your content too.
You shouldn’t be stuffing in keywords anywhere you can fit them though. Instead, you should always start with some keyword research. You can use SEO tools like Google Ads, Ahrefs, and on-site search bars to find broad search intent and your seed keywords. Next, you should try to dig deeper and find some long-tail variants of these keywords, look at your competitors to find gaps in their keyword strategy, and include your keywords in your metadata as well as in anchor texts for links.
Don’t keyword stuff. Instead, try to fit your keywords in as naturally as you can, so you don’t spoil the readability of the content.
Focus On UX (User Experience)
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to navigate around a website that is difficult to use. In fact, most people won’t bother after more than a few seconds of annoyance and will just leave your website. Google will struggle too. Problems like messy site structures, error pages, and dead links all cause people and search engines to have a bad experience on your website.
Site users are looking for a good experience and an easy to navigate website. These also help Google’s crawlers to effectively scan your content and decide on your SERP rankings. To improve your UX, make use of headings and easy-to-read, short paragraphs. Optimize for mobile, and tidy up any sub-folders. All of these things should help to reduce your bounce rate, improve your search rankings, and give you a better conversion rate.
Use these tips to get your SEO right for 2021.