7 SEO Tactics You Must Start Doing IMMEDIATELY!

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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.

5 SEO Tactics You Must Start Doing IMMEDIATELY!

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.
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.Click To Tweet

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

keywords-in-your-content

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:

using-heading-tags

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!

Simply by customizing the H1 tags on their website, one company immediately saw a 62% increase in traffic!Click To Tweet

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

seo-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.

According to research done by the Hook Agency, the optimal length of a blog post in 2020 is 1,760 words.Click To Tweet

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.

mobile-friendly-page

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

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

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?

seo-tactic-optimized-featured-snippets

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.

5 SEO Tactics You Must Start Doing IMMEDIATELY!

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.

google-search-console-seo-tactic

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:
how-to-seo-blog-post

 

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

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Eric Dawson
Eric Dawson
9 years ago

As usual terrific advice, freely offered, from @kimgarst

Jaeson Sabtaba
Jaeson Sabtaba
9 years ago

Great info as always! Thanks Kim!

Katherine Swarts
Katherine Swarts
9 years ago

Just what I need; I’m scheduled to teach a content-writing course next month, and the SEO section needed some filling out (and backing up)!

Ayi Etim
Ayi Etim
9 years ago

Hi, I like the header hashtag. It is a great way to get your content found out, Thanks.

Nancy Myrland
Nancy Myrland
9 years ago

Great list, Kim, and so doable for everyone!

Rainer Reitz
Rainer Reitz
8 years ago

Thanks, Kim. We all should know and apply some of these advises. Interesting insight regarding text length. All the best and happy xmas!

Vince
Vince
8 years ago

Great article!I think traffic is the most important thing in blogging and there are other ways to drive traffic, We shouldn’t ignore SEO but we also shouldn’t solely depend on it either.

shabeer m
shabeer m
5 years ago

Thanks for sharing this Blog, wonderful info I gained more information about the search engine optimization and Digital Marketing.

Sunny Leone
Sunny Leone
5 years ago

vary good post.

Yukti Arora
Yukti Arora
5 years ago

First I want to thank you for posting such amazing article which is really very helpful and i read your complete blog i found something new here so thank you again and keep posting and update with new things.

Faisal Ahmmed
Faisal Ahmmed
4 years ago

Very Impressive.

saurabh gupta
saurabh gupta
4 years ago

Nice Blog And Good Information Shared Here.

radoslav ivanov
radoslav ivanov
4 years ago

The content is really unique and the techniques are unbeatable.The only bad thing is that seo is always evolving due to spam and you can never stick to the same strategy.

Ram
Ram
3 years ago

Thank you for sharing your knowledge

Dinesh
Dinesh
3 years ago

Hi Kim, super informative and useful article. Thanks for sharing.

SEO in Dubai
SEO in Dubai
3 years ago

we are SEO service company located in Dubai. Thanks for share your ideas about the SEO Tricks. Really useful.

Murielle - Maigrir sans faire de sport
Murielle - Maigrir sans faire de sport
3 years ago

great article to improve its referencing. SEO is so important now that doing without it is impossible. This article is a good summary of all the aspects you need to pay attention to in order to write an article that will rank in the search engines.

business blogs
business blogs

The article you have shared here very good article.This is really interesting information for me.Thanks for sharing.

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