SEO Best Practices 2017

SEO best practices 2017 reflects constantly evolving and technology is the driving force behind this change.  In 2016 the primary areas of focus were:

1. Unique content
2. Links
3. Interactive search results

In 2017 best practices, will be the same as the previous year but with some additions. 

Mobile search optimization and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)-

Mobile device usage has increased significantly over the last few years and that means that webpages need to be optimized for mobile technology.  Accelerated mobile pages allow mobile devices to play media rich content such as videos, images, and animations.

High quality and unique content –

High quality content is an important part of the user experience and is therefore a critical part of SEO.  If the content is low quality users will not stay on a page.  Content is intended to give a user information that is relevant to their search. 

Google Rank Brain and interactive search results –

To help ensure websites have quality content Google has introduced Rank Brain. Rank Brain is an artificial intelligence (AI) based technology designed to pick out quality content to be returned in the search engine results page (SERP). As mobile technology becomes more advanced and popular so does voice search. When users search for something with voice search their words become more conversational. This means that Google has to determine the user’s intent and that is what Rank Brain is designed to do.

Social media optimization –

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have a lot of traffic and it is beneficial to link social media sites to a website to maximize visibility and increase website traffic. It is important to note maintaining a consistent name, address, phone number, website, and business categories (NAPWC) across all social media and directories will make your web site more visible to search engines. There are some tools available that can help post new content across several social media channels at one time. This is a huge time saver and will help increase your visibility and traffic.

Links –

Quality external links not only help in ranking but are intended to funnel more traffic to a website. When acquiring external links to your web site they must come from a site that has content relevant to page it is linking to. Another factor to consider is the linking site should be reputable with a high domain/page authority. Internal linking helps users to easily navigate within the site and find relevant content. In addition to helping the user it also helps the search engine bots crawl your site more easily adding its credibility.

Website design and navigation –

The website design needs to be user friendly and engaging.  Things like having a call to action that is easily seen will help to increase conversions and the internal linking mentioned above will guide them to useful information. Submitting up to date site maps regularly will help the search engine bots more easily crawl the site.

Switching over to HTTPS from HTTP –

HTTPS is a safer protocol than HTTP that will protect users and website owners sensitive information (e.g. credit card number).  In addition to the obvious safety reasons for using HTTPS Google is going to start penalizing sites that do not have the HTTPS.

It is important to remember that a website is intended to impart useful information, sell products and services, or generate leads. The guidelines mentioned here are not just to gain favor with search engines but to provide value to the user which in turn adds value to your web site. This brings us to the next subject which is page load speed.

Page Load Speed

We have all been there, enter a search query into Google (or whatever search engine you use), you find what you want and click the link, all that appears is the spinning wheel of hurry up and wait. The next thing you do is hit the back button and try another search result. This is why it is so important to ensure your web pages load fast.  There are several factors that can affect your page load speed.

1. Minify code (HTML, CSS, Javascript) – Code is typically rather spread out and kind of resembles a waterfall. When the code is minified it is all squashed together. When it is minified it helps the web page to load faster. [spacer height=”20px”]
2. Images – These are an important part of the user experience and can add tremendous value. The only downside is they can slow down the page load speed. For this reason, it is important to compress them as much as possible without affecting their appearance. There are several free tools out there such as https://compressor.io/ that can compress your images. Compressor.io is used before images are added to your site. If you are using a CMS such as WordPress their plugins (e.g. EWWW, WP Smush) that can compress the images already on your site.

If you apply these two tips you will see an increase in your page load speed and a reduction in Bounce Rate.

Summing it all up

Search engine optimization is not an easy process and in fact is quite time consuming. For these reasons many businesses opt to hire a professional to handle this end of business for them freeing them up to do more important things. The information presented here is only the tip of the iceberg as there are many other factors involved as well. But these tips and tricks are an excellent starting point to begin optimizing your site for search engines a Portland SEO Consultant can help guide you through this process. As Google changes so must the SEO best practices. This requires staying up to speed and adapting. It is very easy to get caught up in all of the technical aspects of optimizing a website, but it is important to always remember the most important thing. What is that thing? Create content that adds value for the user and keeps them engaged the user experience is the most important part of an online presence.