SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of the main digital marketing strategies. It is the techniques used to optimize a website to make it more attractive to search engines. Google has a complex system and algorithms programmed to scour the entire Internet in order to list sites according to the searches made. These search results follow a ranking of relevance and quality, the best positioned being the most consulted.
Get quality links by investing in relevant content
The two main factors that contribute to optimizing the referencing of a page for search engines are the quantity and quality of the links that the page receives; without neglecting the quality and relevance of the content.
The techniques of google referencing consist of two important indexations: domain authority and page authority. When your page receives links from other sites with more authority, this authority is partially transferred to your page.
If a page has authority, it is likely to have quality traffic (many visitors spending more time on the site, low bounce rate); which brings us to the second factor which is the quality of the content. The better your content is, the more likely you are to generate quality links.
A good seo optimization strategy starts with a well-designed content program. Relevant content generates more links, more shares, more clicks, and all of this actively contributes to Google's understanding that your website or blog deserves a higher ranking in search results.
Explore Latent Semantic Indexing and Go Beyond Keywords
Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI is one of the factors that Google applies in its algorithm to find the best pages for each keyword search. The technique consists of a formula to identify patterns between words, based on variations of the same term and the relationship of related terms.
One of the most common techniques was to rely on keyword repetition to force search engines to believe that the content was relevant to the search term. Within a short time, search engines considered this practice to be malicious and began to penalize sites that exaggerated the repetition of the word.
To continue finding the most relevant content, Google began working with LSI, which is a way to search for natural and common variations of a keyword. For example, if you're writing an article on SEO, you're likely to use terms like "increase traffic", "increase traffic" and "increase website traffic". The algorithm identifies that these are variations of the same keyword and considers the practice of increasing your page rankings against these terms, even if each only appears once in the entire article.
When writing your article, consider the terms related to the keyword that is the subject of the article and be sure to mention them at least once, preferably near the main keyword. This will prevent you from appearing in searches unrelated to your article.
Get out of superficiality
In recent years, an increasing amount of content has gained space on search result pages, penalizing pages with superficial and fast-reading content.
In a survey of more than 20,000 keywords, it was identified that on average, all the content on Google's first page exceeds 2,000 words. No doubt that there are shorter contents with a good ranking. However, longer content makes the user stay longer on the page and is more shared, and this is worth gold for the algorithms.
For those newbies, producing content of 500 to 1000 words is better than not producing, and there is a good chance of reaching the first page of Google if the keyword does not have much competition.
Beware, optimizing a site is not about filling a publication with irrelevant and redundant information to give it more words. On the contrary, it is the good recipe to scare users and be penalized by Google.
A few additional tips and not the least
Be a good host and invest in the experience of your visitors. For google referencing, it is important to guarantee a positive experience for visitors. This will improve the authority of your page and your domain.
Obsolete content tends to disappear from search results within a few weeks. It makes sense to update the content of your site. Your goal should be to increase the depth of responses, with up-to-date examples, tips and suggestions - anything that can engage your visitor more.
Avoid monotony in order to provide a positive experience by illustrating good images throughout the text. Also note that your text should always be easy to read and scan with the eyes.
Optimize important elements around the keywords you choose: titles, descriptions, headings and content, image titles and alternative text, URLs. They should make people want to click to learn more.
Improve the loading time of your site, as slow loading will be penalized by search engines. Also make sure that the site will be easy to navigate on mobile devices, as Google's indexing is now focused on this platform.
And finally, get a complete list of the errors that prevent your site from reaching the top of Google's rankings. Perform a seo audit that prioritizes each fix based on the potential impact on traffic and the ease of implementation of your site.