Critical SEO Tips to Boost Your Organic Web Traffic in 2021
– By #RSA
Organic web traffic. Everybody wants it. No matter your business niche, there is nothing more desirable than a top spot in Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs) for your juiciest keywords. According to a 2019 study by Backlinko, the top 3 Google search results get 75.1% of all clicks.
So how do you claim one of these top spots (or ideally, THE top spot) for your chosen keyword(s)?
Unfortunately there’s no magic bullet, but you can start making serious headway by following these critical SEO tips.
You can do that if your top priority is to provide value.
Google’s primary goal is to deliver the most relevant and reliable information available. To reach the top results, Google needs to think your website satisfies the intent behind the user’s search query.
Let’s say, for example, your website ranks behind another website for your chosen keyword.
The higher result will almost assuredly receive more click throughs initially, but if that result does not provide value to the user, they’ll return to the SERPs and keep clicking links until something else does.
However, if more users get value from your website (and, subsequently stay there longer, taking more actions) than the website ranked above yours, Google will see these signals and boost the ranking of your page as a result.
Providing value is important, but your rankings could tank if your website offers a poor user experience. User experience is a complex topic, but these rules of thumb will make your website and content more engaging so people don’t click away to find something else.
- Create Great Content
This means making sure your pages are:
- High-Quality
They need to be well-written and researched, compellingly delivered, correctly formatted… You know- that whole “providing value” thing. Write for humans first, and search engines second. - Optimized for Readability
Visually appealing. Broken up, so when people visit your site, their first thought isn’t “Oh no- I’m about to read an encyclopedia!”
Bullet points. Headings. Sub-headings. Incorporate ample use of white space and varying lengths of sentences and paragraphs. This will create visual and auditory flow.
The idea is to design your site so people get a nice gist by scanning, but can easily dive deeper if they want. - Better Than Your Competitors
Find their higher-ranked pages and build something that’s 10x better. Then, do it again. And again. And again.
- High-Quality
- Make Sure Your Website Loads FAST
People have little patience for a slow website which means Google doesn’t have much either.
Both your bounce rate (the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page) AND your conversion rate (number of visitors to a website that complete a desired goal (a conversion) out of the total number of visitors) decrease significantly the longer it takes your website to load.
Put simply, you’re losing business AND you’re losing SEO if your website is too slow. Run it through Google's PageSpeed Insights tool for suggestions that’ll make your site faster. - Design it with Mobile in Mind First
Google announced in March 2020 that, beginning September 2020, they would be indexing the entire web using a smartphone mobile crawler.
It makes perfect sense, as 63 percent of Google's US organic search traffic originated from mobile devices in 2019.
81% of Americans have a smartphone now. Design your website accordingly!
Your title and meta descriptions are the first things your potential visitors will see on the Google SERPs. Think of it as your first impression- it’s gotta be good.
This info in itself is not responsible for a page’s ranking, but it does influence searchers in their decision to click your link or not. That affects your clickthrough rate (CTR) which DOES have a direct effect on your ranking.
Your headline should strike a nice balance between including your desired keyword you’d like to rank for and actually sounding natural and interesting- i.e. something people will actually want to click on and share!
It should also be relevant to the content on the rest of the page.
Long story short:
The subject of Search Engine Optimization is incredibly vast and ever-changing. It requires strategy, know-how, and continuous maintenance in order to reign supreme atop the Google SERPs.
Interested in seeing what we can do for you and your business with Search Engine Optimization?
Contact us
... for a free SEO strategy quote!
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