5 Ways to Win the SEO Game in 2020

Search engine optimization, which is usually referred to as SEO, is the art of increasing the quality and quantity of your web traffic by optimizing your website to help it appear in search engines. As people search for products and services online, they only interact with search results that appear on the first page and rarely go past that first page. In fact, the first organic search result on Google gets over 80% of all clicks for that search!

SEO serves as one of the most substantial assets in your digital marketing efforts. Now that everyone has jumped on the SEO bandwagon, how will you stand out? In this article, we will cover five different ways to get a head start on your SEO this year and for the years to come. Let’s get started!

SEO tip #1: Use a responsive website design.
A responsive website is one that will automatically adjust to fit any screen size on any device. Google actually recommends that all websites use a responsive web design because it ensures that your site will be user-friendly for all users. This reduces the need to have a separate mobile version of your website so that you can reach users from any device with one URL. Responsive websites perform better than having an independent mobile site because the content will adjust on its own, which will make it load faster. This brings us to our next point in tip #2.

SEO tip #2: Ensure that your loading speed is top-notch.
Loading speed is more important for your SEO than most people realize, and it is a factor in your search engine ranking. Users expect a web page to load in under 4 seconds, or else they will exit your website and go elsewhere. A website might load slowly for many reasons, including too many animations, poor coding and web hosting, excessive advertisements, plugins, cache, and unoptimized images.

You can test your website loading speed here for free. If your loading time is over 5 seconds, consider simplifying aspects of your website by updating the code or removing elements that take up a lot of space. Check your web hosting provider to ensure that everything is top-notch on their end.

SEO tip #3: Optimize your website for voice search.
2020 is the year of voice search – from Amazon Alexas to Google Assistants and Siri, we are surrounded and by voice search devices. Over 66 million Americans own a smart speaker as of today. What makes voice search optimization different from regular SEO? Creating content for SEO purposes requires you to write in a way that mimics how people use search engines. For example, To be discoverable by smart speakers, you also need to use structured data or schema markup. For more information about voice search trends, check out this article!

SEO tip #4: Fill your website with valuable search engine optimized content.
Content is the king of SEO, and your website needs to have plenty of relevant and useful content for your customers. There are a few different ways to incorporate more valuable content on your website. The most effective way is to start a blog on your business website. The benefits of blogging are endless – from showing search engines that you are an active business and an expert in your niche, to giving your customers more reasons to visit and share content on your website.

The best way to optimize the content on your website for search engines is to use keywords strategically. Select one main keyword, and use it in your title (or H1) and be sure to use it again in your first sentence (or H2), and then sprinkle it throughout your blog post or your web page up to five more times but no more than that to avoid triggering spam.

A blog post or web page that is search engine optimized, however, does not automatically mean that it will perform well. The quality of your content is the crucial part here.

SEO tip #5: Update your keywords regularly.
When you implement keywords on your website through blog posts, web page content, and meta tags, it doesn’t guarantee that it will benefit your website forever. Keywords for SEO change constantly depending on customer demand and search trends. Part of the art of SEO is learning to adapt to the changing trends and stay up-to-date with your market.

A free tool you can use is Google Keyword Planner to search forecasted keyword metrics and to get keyword ideas. Ideally, you should be researching and updating keywords on a near-daily basis if you want the best and fastest results.

For more information on SEO and SEO services, call Octadyne Systems at 515-232-2024, or send us a message at info@octadyne.com. Our SEO experts are eager to talk to you today!