10 Things you Need to Know About SEO

Are you clued up on these 10 SEO facts?

admin

Ramzi Chamat / 8 Ways Media
2016-10-17 09:47:00

SEO refers to what you can do to boost your website’s rankings in search engine results such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. SEO is a hot topic for writers, bloggers, businesses and web designers, as it can make all the difference between being found in search engine results and being buried amongst a sea of competition.

Here are 10 things you need to know about SEO!

1. Meta descriptions don’t possess any SEO power… but are still powerful  

The meta description is the brief snippet of text that appears beneath a link in search engines. And although meta descriptions don’t have any SEO influence, they are still powerful. A well-written meta description under 155 characters long has the power to increase click through rates. Be sure to create tempting meta descriptions that are short and sweet, otherwise they will be cut off with ellipses after 155 characters.

2. Post-slugs improve results

A post slug is the URL-valid name of a post. Some people post articles on websites with little care for the post slug, allowing the URL to be tailed by an incoherent stream of letters or numbers (e.g. www.chocolate.com/908886444236). A more accurate post slug might be www.chocolate.com/making-cupcakes. Keep your post slug clear, short and simple as this will tell Google AND your audience exactly what your page is about.

3. The top 5 search engine results get 75% of clicks

To beat the competition it is better to focus on a handful of important, popular keywords, rather than spreading yourself thin. Be the best in your keyword choices to gain those important clicks.

4. Keyword stuffing reduces results

There are countless ways to inorganically boost your search engine results, but the impact will only be temporary. Keyword stuffing, link farms and other keyword fads are the perfect way to reduce your SEO results and get you penalised by Google

5. High-quality content creation remains the key to success

Your text needs to be tailored towards your readers first, and then search engines. A page that is too SEO-focused will not be interesting to your audience, so you need to focus on creating high-quality content that is well researched, tailored to your industry and written with your exact target market in mind.

6. 75% of SEO is off-page…

..and 25% is on-page. So, to improve your SEO results you need to attract more links while making your content relevant for human searchers. To do this, make sure that your high-quality content is interesting and relevant. Insert the right keywords into your text in an organic way. Also, create content that will inspire people – content that people will want to share and link to. When Google and other search engines see this, they will view your site as valuable and rank you highly as a result.

7. Page titles are an important on-page element

After high-quality content, page titles are the most important on-page element. When you insert a keyword into one of your page titles, the chances of you ranking much higher in search engine results increases, and within the course of just a few weeks you could go from ranking 50th to ranking 20th. You should also include the keyword in the meta title box so that Google knows exactly what your page is about.

8. Taglines make a difference

The tagline is your website’s description and is usually found just below the title of your website. For example, on a website such as www.chocolate.com we might find the tagline ‘Baking tips for the first-time baker’. It’s a good idea to use a tagline as this tells both internet searchers and search engines exactly what your website is all about.

9. Updating your site regularly will improve your SEO results

SEO isn’t a one-off process that ends with a few keywords. It is a long, relenting process that has no expiration date. Your site needs to be constantly updated with fresh content, plenty of keywords, up-to-date descriptions and tweaked copy. Broken links also need to be fixed. All of these changes will attract search engine spiders back to your site and help you climb to the top of the SERPs.

10. The rules aren’t written in stone  

Finally, when you think you’ve got the formula spot on, the rules can change at any moment. Google can (and does) change its algorithm at any moment, so if you don’t keep afloat of the latest changes, you run the risk of ruining your rankings. Staying up-to-date with the latest SEO rules is essential if you want to stay at the top of search engine results and ahead of the competition. 

About Us

8 Ways Media is a leading Swiss-based digital and marketing agency offering a wealth of contemporary, creative services to a vast international clientele. Whether it's a bespoke web design or landing page you are after or anything related to branding and marketing, we're here to help. Get in touch today to speak to a member of our team about some of our many exceptional services that are guaranteed to propel your business into the limelight.  

Interested to meet digital professionals?

Let’s discuss your project and try to find the best solution for your needs.