In a previous article we stated the importance of good SEO and that good SEO helps boost your website rankings. Good SEO differs from paying to be high on search for certain keywords which Google Ads offers. Google Ads is a faster way to get to the top, where SEO is the long game but in many ways the better one to be winning. We like to think of SEO as the word of mouth Google advertising, the best kind of marketing/advertising is good recommendations from your friends. If you rank high on Google Search for your keyword(s) then Google, like a good friend, is recommending you.
Good friends are built over time and need to be nurtured, you look after each other, so in this case, lets look after Google’s search engines in which case will help us down the track.
What makes good SEO?
These days we are all searching on our phones, a desktop experience vs a mobile differs and when creating a website, think of the user experience for a mobile phone first.
Remove anything that slows down a site, people want speed and access fast. We all know how impatient we are to get anything today and if you are slowing a user down, you are doing damage to your SEO. Remove anything that slows your site speed down, e.g. large files, large pics, etc.
Link building is still very important, links out and links in. Build those and build recommendations from trusted sources. There was a time when SEO hackers would build multiple links to one site to help boost a website ranking but when Google did a massive overhaul and check of these so-called links only links with relevant website referrals were kept, the rest were scrapped and penalised. In some cases some websites went from page 1 to page 5 overnight for using dodgy referrals,
Write for a human first, not for an algorithm. Gone are the days where you needed to game the system and write content that Google bots would prefer. These days writing as if you were chatting to another human with relevant information and relevant topics will boost your ranking. Don’t worry, those algorithms are still at work, it’s just they’re more attuned to how humans speak. Scary isn’t it.
Format content for featured snippets. Erm, what? So think of this; when you search for a certain question/information you get served answers. Go on, do it now, search what is a featured snippet and see what pops up. See it, well that is Google’s best answer it found for that question after performing a search. So, got a question your website can answer, write it as informative as you can with as much of a logical human approach you can - with a good (mobile first) website with no bad backlinks, be relevant to the question and don ’t have anything that slows your site down. Pretty much good SEO that!
What’s more, it is always important to refresh your site, keep checking on any Google algorithm updates they drop, and they do drop several times a year. Keep your site fresh, keep it relative and keep it fast. Your website is an organic, ever-changing site that needs a bit of love and affection. Just like you would for a good friendship.
