7 SEO Tactics You Must Start Doing IMMEDIATELY!

I know SEO isn’t everyone’s favorite topic, but if you want your content to rank in the search engines, it’s an absolute must.

To demystify SEO a bit, and to help you optimize your content effectively, I’ve put together this list of:

7 SEO tactics you must start doing immediately!

1. Use Your Keywords Throughout Your Content.

Keywords are simply words or phrases people are searching for in the search engines.

For each page and post on your site, choose 1-2 longer, multiword phrases you want to target (this is where keyword research comes in).

Not sure where or how to use them?

According to the SEO experts at Moz, an ideally-optimized page in 2020 would include its main keywords in its:

• Title tag
• URL
• Image alt text, and
• Several times throughout the content.

Grab the Yoast SEO plugin for free and it will tell you exactly where and how to use your keywords, like this:

This is one of the SEO tactics that doesn’t get easier than that!

2. Use Heading Tags to Show What Your Content is About.

This may sound complicated, but trust me – it’s not. Heading tags are simply headings used to indicate to Google and to your readers what your content is about.

When writing your blog post, WordPress lets you easily add heading tags like this:

Here’s a quick overview of how to use them to get your content ranking.

H1: Each page should have one (and only one) H1 tag. It will usually be the title of your page or post, and is important both for rankings and for user experience.

H2: These are sub-headings that are used to break your content into more manageable chunks. They help your readers understand the progression of your content, and let the search engines know the main topics of your page.

H3, H4, etc.: These are sub-sub-headings! Generally speaking, your H1 and H2 tags are where you should be putting your focus. However, longer articles may benefit from the use of these sub-headings to break up long chunks of text.

This may not be one of the SEO tactics that is worth all the work to add heading tags to it? Simply by customizing the H1 tags on their website, one company immediately saw a 62% increase in traffic!

3. Focus on Writing Longer, More In-Depth Content.

It used to be that you could write short (<400 word) content, target it towards a certain keyword, and get it ranking in the search engines. But over the past few years, Google (and people!) are showing a clear preference for longer, more ‘meaty’ content that does a thorough job of covering a topic.

According to research done by the Hook Agency, the optimal length of a blog post in 2020 is 1,760 words. Other research suggests the optimal length is anywhere from 1,000-1,900 words.

In other words, don’t stress about an exact word count! Instead, focus on really doing justice to your topic.

Choose a main topic, and then a variety of sub-topics to write about. Think about questions your readers may have, and make sure to answer those in your post.

Basically, focus on writing a super-helpful, epic post, and you’re going to be good!

4. Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly.

With 91% of internet users now accessing the web using their mobile device, your website absolutely MUST be optimized for mobile!

Not sure if your site is mobile-friendly? If you’ve had your site professionally-designed in the past few years, or are using a newer website template or theme, there’s a good chance it is.

However, just to be sure, I recommend using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Simply enter your website URL, and it will let you know whether the page is mobile-friendly or not!

5. Optimize for Featured Snippets

Have you ever searched for a topic in Google, only to see something like this in the search results?

This SEO tactic is what is known as a featured snippet.

These are often shown when someone types a question into Google, such as, “How do I bake a cake?” or “Where is Costa Rica?”.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, some tips for ranking for featured snippets include:

• Repeating the question in your content
• Formatting the answer using lists or tables
• Giving a clear, concise answer, as well as a longer, more detailed one
• Removing all information that doesn’t help answer the question

6. Focus on E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

More than ever before, Google wants to promote content that’s reliable, accurate, and that’s created by experts in the field.

This is particularly important for content written around health, relationships and money-related issues.

When writing important content around these topics, make sure your authors are authorities on the subject, and that their credentials are clearly displayed next to the content.

You can do this using an author box (this is easy using a plugin like Simple Author Box), or by simply including a short author bio under each blog post.

7. Connect Your Site to Google Search Console.

Worried you might be doing something wrong when it comes to SEO?

Want to make sure you’re in Google’s good books, and that Google is able to find and index your site properly?

Then connecting your site to the Google Search Console is imperative.

Once you’ve got this set up, you’ll be able to measure your site’s search traffic, and see how your content ranks in Google Search.

You’ll also receive a notification if anything on your site is amiss, so you can deal with it ASAP!

Final Thoughts

SEO is still super-important in 2021…if you like getting traffic to your site, that is 😉

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or confused about the process of optimizing your content, you’ll want to check out my step-by-step training, How to SEO Your Blog Post Like a Pro.

In this training, I walk you through each and every step you need to get your posts ranking, and you’ll even get a checklist so you can make sure your blog posts are always perfectly SEO’d!

Grab the training by clicking on the image below:

Which among these SEO tactics above are you going to implement first? Let me know in the comments below!

About Author

Kim Garst

Kim Garst is one of the world's most retweeted people among digital marketers. She is a renowed business strategist, keynote speaker and an international best-selling author of Will The Real You Please Stand Up, Show Up, Be Authentic and Prosper in Social Media. Kim helps business owners grow their business using social and digital media.

She is the founder of KG Enterprises, LLC, a business strategy consulting company that helps business owners create more sales using the power of digital and social media.

Kim is also internationally recognized as a thought leader in the social media space. Forbes named her as one of the Top 10 Social Media Power Influencers. Her blog is one of the top social media resources in the world.

You can find more great content from her at www.kimgarst.com/blog.

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