SEO Tips For The New Year
Don’t approach 2016 with last year’s SEO practices. Take a few tips from Midphase to get the year started right.
As 2015 draws to a close, it is important to start planning for the year ahead. The technology industry is fluid and ever-changing, particularly from a marketing perspective. Last year’s SEO tactics won’t hold such a punch in 2016, so it’s important to stay on top of search engine trends to keep your site at the top of the search results list.
Search engine optimization allows your site to create organic traffic from potential customers researching their next purchase of products or services. By following recommendations from search engines and SEO experts, you can take a small business from last in line to unicorn status.
Below are some tips from the experts that can help you redesign your SEO strategy for 2016, with recommendations from self-acclaimed ‘SEO demystifier’, Jason DeMers from Forbes Magazine.
- Keywords
There has been much speculation around the effectiveness of keywords within website pages and content. Many experts have predicted that the keyword is on the way out, but 2016 will not be that year. Keywords are as effective as ever for helping web crawlers rank your website and should be used in context when providing relevant content to your readers.
According to DeMers, mobile content should be shorter than desktop with an average of 868 words per page. Keep in mind that for top-ranking desktop pages the word count is higher than this average. There is always a need for honest, original, expert content and the providers of such content will be rewarded.
Having a fully optimized site has been crucial since Google’s mobile-friendly update, otherwise known as Mobilegeddon, came into effect early in 2015. Since this update, if your site is not optimized search engines will keep you from ranking higher in the SERP (search engine rank page).
In fact, Google recently announced that more searches are coming from mobile devices than desktops, so ensuring that your site looks great on any size screen is a prerequisite to having a fully functioning website. For more information and frequently asked questions about how to ensure that your site is mobile ready read this blog post from Midphase.
- Loading times
Website visitors will most likely click away from any site that takes more than three seconds to load. The average load time for a website on a mobile device is 1.10 seconds. Any time spent loading after 1.10 seconds carries the risk that you may be losing visitors, customers and most importantly, money.
If you are unsure of how long it takes your site to load visit Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Google can time your site’s loading speeds and give you helpful tips on how to increase your speeds. From there you can get a free scan from our Website SEO Guru to cover all of the areas beyond page loading times that can affect your search engine rankings.
- Ads
Advertisements are another one of the much debated SEO topics in the world. Due to the shift to mobile devices it is important to remember for 2016 that less advertising is more. Now, we understand that ads can be what keep a site up and running, but because ads – specifically in video format – have the potential to slow your website to a crawl, it is best to keep them to a minimum.
Try to stay away from ads that use outdated modes (like Flash) and test your site with and without the ads being active before making decisions.
Google is becoming increasingly clever thanks to artificial intelligences like RankBrain, and because of this SEO is becoming more and more of a guessing game. Having a great partner in search engine optimization can increase conversions and profit from your site. Refer frequently to your analytics for best SEO results and educate yourself to the upcoming changes from search engines to prepare for the future.
Don’t let SEO keep you from creating organic traffic.
Let Midphase’s SEO Guru get you to the top and capture every potential sale. Visit Midphase.com today for a free SEO report.