When it comes to SEO, your core industry and audience should be the top priority. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, so online retailers must stay up-to-date with the best practices to achieve the best rankings for relevant keywords.
Content is the most important element of a successful SEO strategy. When creating content for your website, think about what information is essential for customers. The length of the content matters to both search engines and its SEO impact, so we recommend adding at least 300 words, but 500 words is a good average for a page. Keep in mind that longer content is better, but make sure it's interesting and relevant to your customers without repeating yourself.
Keywords are terms that users type into search engines like Google to find a website. To be found in the SERPs, you must integrate your keywords into the title of your web pages and into the content of your website. It's best to integrate them at the beginning of the text while making sure it looks natural and fits with the content. If you just list your keywords one after another without proper integration, you risk being detected by search engine monitoring and your website can be penalized.
The meta title is the title published in the SERPs and can have a maximum of 55 characters to be fully displayed in the SERPs. An effective meta title should include your 3 main keywords and perfectly describe your business to motivate users to visit your website. The meta description is the text shown in the SERPs under your meta title. This description must contain a maximum of 150 characters and must also contain the 3 main keywords. The description should clearly explain your business to entice users to visit your site.
Social media is one of the best channels for companies to interact with their customers and provide updates on any news of their business. It's not just about showing content to people; quality content is both a precursor to rankings and a powerful aspect of any campaign size.
For an effective SEO strategy, you must devise a cohesive plan that doesn't consider rankings, content, and results as separate pieces but as intertwined pieces of the same puzzle. With almost 51% of web traffic coming from smartphones alone, Google rewards mobile-friendly sites. Tools like the mobile optimization test show how your site works. Ask yourself what purpose your page or post offers viewers; if your answer is simply “improve rankings”, that's not enough for quality metrics. Your content should be authoritative, useful, and provide answers to questions.
Search engines are trying to provide users with the best and clearest answers. While it's not technically an SEO factor, there's definitely a correlation between rankings and social engagement. You want to make sure that your content is shared across different social media platforms. When it comes down to it, you want to add value to the content you're producing.
Page speed is also vital for search engines; according to eConsultancy, “40% of people leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load”. Whether you're a B2B or B2C marketer, you need to be disciplined when it comes to content creation. Make sure all titles of pages and blog posts are optimized for your main keyword and are below 50-60 characters for meta titles. Make sure all pages and posts have 1-2 sentence (~160 characters) meta descriptions that act as a call to action for your page.
If you published a post in the past that is no longer relevant due to Google's recent changes, work on updating that page. Quality SEO isn't just an algorithm; it's a living methodology for judging success with consumers. It's an incredibly complex and ever-changing field that encourages websites to produce high-quality content, format and organize their material optimally, and keep up with results.
