Even though the search engine algorithms which determine rankings change often, there are still tried and true SEO methods that are proven to help you rise higher in the rankings throughout these changes.

Here are the Top 10 best practices for SEO success:

1. Ensure that your website is secure. Most people today are concerned with the privacy and security of the websites that they visit. Consequently, this is also a crucial ranking factor in the search engines. A secure website will always rank higher than one that isn’t secure.
   • Talk with your web host or web manager about the type of security that is most appropriate for your website. A security certificate will ensure that your content is delivered by SSL (secure socket layer).
     
   • With SSL, your website will start with an “https://” instead of “http://” and the little lock icon will show up next to the web address in many browsers.
2. Add your main keyword early into the content. Including your keyword early on lets the search engines know what your content is about. Additionally, sprinkle the main keyword throughout the rest of your content too.
   • This will tell the search engines that this term is important, which will help you rank well for this term.

3. Use unique titles, descriptions, and content. This lets the search engines know that your content is original material and can add further knowledge to the other information that can already be found on the internet about your topic.

4. Optimize your title tag for SEO. Always include your main keyword in the title tag for your website, and if possible, put it at the start of the title. This will give priority to this keyword.

5. Ensure that your website loads quickly. It’s important that you make your website load as quickly as possible. Especially with the advent of smartphones, loading time is an important ranking factor in the search engines.
   • Compress the size of images, remove any unneeded code, and consider using a content delivery network (CDN). If you use a CDN, your website will be able to serve images and other media from servers that are close to your audience, thus cutting down on the loading time.
   • Many web hosts now use CDNs to deliver content for their clients’ websites. Talk with your web host or your web manager about this priority.
   • If you have a WordPress site, there are many plugins that help you speed up the loading time for your website.

6. Optimize any images. You can do this by giving the filenames descriptive names. Using image alt text is also recommended so that the search engines can understand what images are present on your website. Properly optimized images can boost your website rank.

7. Use internal linking. The key here is to link to your main pages. So, any smaller pages can link to a larger, authoritative piece. This will help to increase the rank of the more important page.
   • Try to use the main keyword, or a variation of it, in your internal links to ensure that the search engines know what the page is about.

8. Create amazing content. Write high quality content that answers questions that your readers might have about your topic.
   • If you can answer a question in less than 1,000 words, that is fine. However, it’s worth noting that it’s important to be thorough with any answer, so you may want to write considerably more than this amount.
   • Many of the highest-ranking pages include longer, authoritative content.

9. Build backlinks to your website. Despite what you may have read online that backlinks are no longer important, please note that backlinks, when done properly, are still very important. They show the search engines that your content is valuable enough for other webmasters to link to.
   • When you first start your website, you may want to go slow when building backlinks. After a few months you’ll be able to ramp up your efforts.
   • With this strategy, you want to obtain links from other important websites in this field. Links from low quality websites that accept advertising from anyone to any website are likely to hurt your search engine rankings.

10. Look at the user experience. If you find that visitors are struggling to navigate your website or that you have a high bounce rate, which is when people leave your website after just a short time, take a close look at your user experience.
    • Perhaps your visitors aren’t finding the answers that they’re looking for, or maybe your website is broken in some way. See what you can do to improve the overall experience of your visitors.

Following these Top 10 SEO best practices will enable you to achieve higher rankings in the search engines. The higher you rank, the more traffic you should be able to achieve, and ultimately the more sales you will be able to make.

Despite what you may have seen online and from various experts in the field, it is certainly possible to rank your website without backlinks. The following techniques will focus more on on-page SEO, creating valuable content, and off-page mentions.

So, what are these techniques?

1. Create valuable content. When you answer a search query thoroughly, then you’re giving your readers what they want to know. This will increase user engagement on your website, which will tell the search engines that your content is valuable. Consequently, the search engines will rank your website highly for that search term. For the highest rankings, go more in-depth than your competitors, provide clear answers, and provide graphics or illustrations to help your reader understand the content clearly.
2. Try to rank for longtail keywords. These are keywords that are niche-specific and may have very little search engine traffic. The reason why you will be aiming to rank for these terms is that there is less competition, so they should be easier to rank highly for. Ranking highly for these terms will be easier and maybe quicker to achieve too. Plus, if you rank highly for lots of these terms, your overall traffic will increase. At this point, you may be able to consider ranking for more competitive search terms.
3. Get customer reviews. With local businesses, reviews submitted about your website online can affect your search engine rankings as well. For many reasons, it’s worth your time and effort to ensure that you are providing the best service possible for your customers. This will lead to great reviews and more customers!
4. Copy your competitor’s on-page SEO strategy. Visit your competitor’s website and study their content. You may think that creating longer forms of content is best when it comes to ranking. However, this is not always the case. Check whatever pages are ranking for each particular search term.
5. Build internal links. For each of your longer, authoritative articles, link smaller supporting articles in your website to this main page. This will help your longer page achieve higher rankings.
6. Ensure that your website is easy to navigate. If your website isn’t easy to navigate, your visitors will just click off your website and go somewhere else. This can lower the time spent on your website and increase the bounce rate. These are both negative SEO factors.
7. Have a mobile-friendly website. These days, most internet users will access your website through a mobile device. If your website isn’t rendering properly on mobile, this will have a negative impact on user experience, rankings, and sales. So, be sure to optimize your website for mobile devices as well as desktops.
8. Increase your page speed. Page speed refers to how fast your website page loads, and this affects your rankings. A faster-loading website improves the user experience of your visitors. No one wants to be waiting for a website to load. Chances are if they have to wait more than a few seconds, they will leave the website entirely.

9. Get an SSL certificate for your website. It has been shown that having an SSL certificate on your website increases your website rankings. These days many search engines will warn its users that a website without this certificate is not secure, which will result in a user leaving the website immediately. This harms your rankings and possibly your reputation as well.

If your website is still new and has yet to establish any authority within the niche, or if the competitors in this particular niche have very few backlinks, then it is certainly possible to rank highly for various search terms using these strategies.

As your website becomes more competitive, then building backlinks will certainly help you to continue to rank higher. But in the meantime, don’t worry about the backlinks. Draw your visitors to your secure, quick-loading website and provide quality content that they’ll want to engage with and share with others.

Need help with ranking your website? Shoot me an email and let’s talk! ♥