You must have received a ton of SEO advice from all kinds of sources. While some of them sound cool and trendy, they do absolutely nothing for your business. On the other hand, some SEO tactics actually do work, but they take a long time to deliver the expected results. Below, GREENstick brings to you 98 proven, actionable SEO tips that will get you results in real-time.
Basic SEO Tips
- Videos are highly effective! Do not shy away from using and optimizing them.
- Make sure you pay close attention to user intent search queries when you are conducting keyword research.
- Work on building authority & trust. Start creating original content that clearly signifies your expertise and business goals.
- Create user-friendly content. Learn about the latest user trends and human behavior before creating content.
- Get those customer reviews! Build a strategy where your customers can provide their reviews or feedback easily.
- It is best to bring in an SEO professional right from the beginning so that the web design, especially the mobile version, is SEO-friendly.
- Strive to meet your customer expectations. Not being able to meet their expectations may cost your business its credibility.
- Using ‘exact match’ keywords isn’t necessary, as Google is quite capable of associating topical keyword search terms.
- You may want to try personalizing your call to action based on a referral, location, or keyword search query.
- Keep the domain short. Make sure the one you choose contains less than 15 characters so it’s easy to remember.
- Remember to look for all variations of your site in the search engine. For example:
- HTTP://xyz.com
- http://www.xyz.com
- https://xyz.com
- https://www.xyz.com
Technical SEO
19. Migrate your site to HTTPS. While you do that, be sure not to make any additional changes, as Google may not acknowledge these changes.
20. As search engines crawl even duplicate URLs, it is important to use canonical tags.
21. Keep the loading speed down to 2-3 seconds. Use the Core Web Vital report along with your developer to figure out how you can improve your site loading time.
22. Aim for Google’s Top Stories Carousel. The best way to make it there is by creating AMP pages, publishing legitimate news, and submitting the site to Google News.
23. Remember to Use rel=canonical tags. Any page that can be reached through different URLs should have the rel=canonical tag to avoid any confusion about duplicate content.
24. Always remember to check whether your pages are indexed with ‘site:domain’ search and that none of them are double-indexed.
25. Ensure that you do not use more than one H1 tag per page.
26. Use Image Alt Attributes. As Google is now moving towards visual search, this is one important aspect you should not ignore.
27. Creating separate sitemaps for sections like images, videos, blogs, etc. will help Google focus its crawl.
28. If your site has dynamic URLs, adjust the URL parameters in GSC.
29. Remember to change all the internal links from HTTP to HTTPS before you migrate your site.
30. In order to improve your user experience and SEO, always add breadcrumbs to your site.
31. Avoid long redirects. By avoiding chain redirects, you can help the search engines crawl your website more quickly.
32. Opt for Vector Format image files. Using vector files will allow you to have better image quality on different devices.
33. Consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to host your images, as it helps to speed up your website considerably.
34. Ensure that you optimize all your images for page speed and user-friendliness.
35. When you have products with similar names and descriptions, it is better to create canonical tags instead of redirecting them.
36. Opt for private hosting. While this will have no effect on your search rankings, sites that have shared hosting get indexed less.
37. Consider investing in visual search. Incorporating visual search in your marketing strategy can be highly-effective for retailers and e-commerce businesses.
38. Use Structured Data to improve ranking. While it isn’t easy for a site to get on the first page of the SERPs, using structured data can improve your chances significantly.
Link Building
39. Make sure you use the disavow tool to get rid of those spammy links.
40. Paid links can cost you! Google webmaster guidelines clearly state that the search engine is not in favor of paid links.
41. Stay away from bad links. If Google comes across any risky link-building tactics, it could backfire big time.
42. Stick to high-quality directories. Building links on high-quality directories will add relevance to your business.
43. Build a clear linking structure. Plan your internal linking strategy carefully so that Google can navigate your site easily.
44. Make sure your link profile is healthy. A healthy link profile helps to establish the overall quality and authority of your site.
45. Focus on quality instead of quantity. Even with link building, authenticity is what matters most.
46. Manual outreach can work wonders. Proactive link-building efforts allow you to control the quality of links.
47. Create no-follow outbound links. In case you end up linking to a low-quality website, you can use them for external links.
48. See to it that your internal links are logically placed. It is best to ensure that, when you link internally, the content around the link is related to the keywords.
Content Optimization
49. Don’t just focus on the keywords. Instead, create content based on important topics.
50. Avoid creating thin content. As compared to thin content, long-form content can get you much better results in search rankings.
51. It is important that you clean up all the scraped or duplicate content from your site.
52. Revisit old content. See if any of your old content is still driving traffic, and try creating new posts along similar lines with more relevant content.
53. Add FAQ pages. Creating these pages will not only help your readers, but also your site’s search rankings.
54. Make the most of syndicated content. While you do this, ensure that the other sites place rel=canonical tags.
55. Remember, content can be repurposed. It is recommended that you think of all the ways you can repurpose your content into videos, Slideshare, etc.
56. Editing is a must! It is important to check all your content for errors so that nothing hampers your user experience.
57. There are tools available for content ideas. Make the most of tools like BuzzSumo to get an idea about what kind of content ranks high.
58. Old content may do more harm than good. Check on your old posts regularly to see if any of them are hurting your rankings.
59. Do a cache check and see when a website’s pages were last cached. If it’s over a month ago, avoid the site.
60. Try using a conversational tone when creating content. It may help your site rank for voice search queries.
61. Instead of pasting the manufacturer’s content, take the time to write original product descriptions.
62. Avoid keyword cannibalization. Instead of having multiple pages trying to rank for similar keywords, try combining their content to form one long-form content piece.
63. Analyze your keywords. Conduct an analysis of your content to see if you can add to it and boost your page ranking.
64. Try creating personalized UX. See if you can offer different pieces of content for new visitors and returning ones.
Local SEO
65. Create content focused on local facts and guides. It can help your business appear higher in search rankings.
66. Take advantage of Trip Planning. Use this feature in the Knowledge Graph to create local travel guides.
67. Make use of the Local Inventory Ads program. It will allow your customers to browse the local store through Google.
68. Try and find new, creative ways to encourage your customers to give reviews.
69. Optimize for user location. You can do this by using the Google Ads distance and store visit reports.
70. Optimizing for multiple locations is also very important. Make sure the NAP details are consistent for every location across all platforms.
71. Add Regional Pages. If your business locations cover multiple states, regional pages are a must.
72. Put up photos on your local pages. Photos of the local office give the business more credibility and make it more appealing to the local audience.
73. Add ‘near me’ in your content! With the steady growth of voice search queries, optimizing for these searches has become even more important.
Analytics & Tools
74. Analyze your exit pages. Find out which pages users are leaving most frequently and revise them.
75. Don’t forget to add your IP address! It is important that you add your IP address to Google Analytics.
76. Keep an eye out for a sudden drop in traffic. It may be due to an algorithm update or a manual action.
77. Pay close attention to your competitors. Check whether their sites are ranking for the same keywords through new content.
78. Try using Google Visits Conversions. If your business is eligible, you must give Google Visit Conversions in Google Ads a try.
79. When you first set up GSC, remember to add both the www & non-www versions of your site.
80. Add your subdomains to GSC as new property so you can get all necessary data.
81. Consider rewriting your meta descriptions. You may want to rewrite your meta descriptions if you see low click-through rates in your GSC Search Analytics report.
82. Check out Google Analytics Segments. This particular feature allows you to gain more insight into your traffic data.
83. Create custom dashboards in Google Analytics and Google Data Studio so the first thing you see when you log in is exactly what you need.
84. Insights are as important as data. Before you try optimizing, gain insights into the latest trends and behavior by using the content analytics tools.
85. Answer those questions! See what questions are most commonly asked related to your keyword terms, and provide the answers in your content.
86. Add Bing Webmaster Tools to your toolkit. You will find that there are some useful tools that are not available in GSC.
Social Media SEO
87. Go for Twitter Cards instead of Twitter URLs. Using Twitter Cards will allow you to make your URLs appear more clickable.
88. Add Open Graph Markup. Using Facebook Open Graph Tags is one of the best ways to optimize your posts on the platform.
89. Ensure your company profile on LinkedIn is complete. Complete company profiles get more views.
90. Get active on Instagram. It’s high time that e-commerce businesses start taking Instagram seriously, especially now that it will allow you to buy directly from the app.
91. Offer Customer Service on Facebook. This can prove to be one very powerful tool for your customer support staff.
92. Try getting more conversions with LinkedIn Ads. Test and experiment to figure out what kind of sponsored content and ads lead to more conversions.
93. Try out Facebook Playlists. The addition of new features has made using Facebook Playlists easier.
94. Shop the Look Ads can lead to more conversions. Give Pinterest’s Shop the Look Ads a go-to to convert more mobile searches.
95. Realize the power of Reddit. Take all possible measures to ensure your brand appears on the 7th most visited website in the United States.
96. Geotarget your Facebook Live Posts. This will help your local business target customers in specific locations.
97. Never forget to sign a contract with influencers. It is important to make it clear from the get-go what the business and the influencer will get from each other.
98. Engage on social bookmarking platforms. Just as you engage on social media, engage on these platforms to earn links.