Looking to Up Your Company’s SEO Game in the New Year? Follow These 5 Tips to Success!
With the start of the new year, now is a great time to re-evaluate your search engine optimization strategy and make some changes for the better.
Take a look at these 5 great tips for how you can improve your website’s SEO in 2017 and see some real results!
Tip 1: Switch Over to a Responsive Website Design
One of the easiest ways you can improve your website’s search engine optimization is by making your website responsive, allowing it to be mobile-friendly on all devices. Not only does this change make it easier for the user, but it can also help your search engine ranking as well.
Many companies don’t consider how much web design can affect their business, but an out of date design can be a huge turn off to potential customers when they visit your site.
With the growth of responsive design, most content management systems, such as WordPress and others, are making it easier for businesses to make the switch.
Tip 2: Keep Your Site Fresh with New Content
It’s no secret that one of the best ways to increase SEO is through continually updating your site with new, optimized content. From adding blog posts to updating keywords on popular landing pages, there are many ways content changes can help your SEO. Remember:
- Be sure your content is engaging, original, and relevant in regards to trends in your own industry and the marketing world so you’ll get the most out of your efforts.
- Fun things such as infographics, funny posts, and videos are also great ways to create fresh content regularly. And posting about local news and events (much like we’ve done through our Cleveland tag) is another worthwhile way to drive visitors to your site.
Sixth City Marketing Pro-tip for 2017: Utilize Online Video
According to the National Law Review, one of the biggest content marketing trends in 2017 is video. Here are some of their key points on why online video is going to be an important aspect of marketing in 2017:
- In 2017, online video is expected to account for 74% of web traffic
- Around 65% of video watchers watch at least ¾ of a video
- 28% of smartphone users watch video on their device at least once per day
- Video can help increase click-through rates by at least 65%
Additionally, using YouTube to share a video can help you to improve your SEO even more. While many people know that YouTube is owned by Google, what they might not know is that YouTube is the second largest search engine in terms of the number of queries.
Interested in giving video content a try? Take a look at these helpful posts:
Tip 3: Continue to Take Advantage of Social Media!
As social media continues to flourish in the marketing industry and just about everywhere else, it’s important to be aware of the many ways you can use social media to boost your SEO efforts.
- You may be surprised at how many people actually rely on social media, not just for personal use but in researching companies they may want to do business with. Your business’ social media presence could be a make or break feature for these potential customers.
- For instance, advertising on Facebook can be an easy and effective way to increase your online presence and generate more leads to your business’ website.
- However, don’t forget about the fun side of social media too, including things like Snapchat filters, Twitter chats, and more!
Tip 4: Make Sure to Remember the Reader
One of the most important aspects of SEO-friendly websites is remembering the user. As we’ve discussed in the past, being user-friendly is one of the basic essentials to having an SEO-friendly website.
Not only is having a responsive design important (as we mentioned in our first tip), but other basic page design features such as bullet points, short paragraphs, and images help to break up copy and make your content more readable.
There are also some negative aspects to be wary of as well, as we noted in a previous blog post, which include:
- Load time – Studies have shown that visitors are less likely to engage on a page if it doesn’t load quickly enough. So, if it takes longer than 10 seconds for your page or images to load, you could be losing potential customers.
- Navigation – A messy navigation or non-searchable site are two other easy ways to turn off viewers from your site and drive them elsewhere.
- Readability – Make sure the user can read text without difficulty by using contrast through font size for headers, selecting easy to read fonts, and avoiding obnoxious colors.
Tip 5: Reach Out with Link Building
If you don’t utilize link building, you really are missing out! No matter your industry, link building should be an essential part of your SEO strategy.
If you’re not sure what link building is exactly, here are the essentials:
- Link building involves reaching out to external online sources to try and get them to link to a page on your site.
- By being linked on other websites, your standing on search engines is elevated and your site is seen as a more reliable source.
As easy as it may seem, there are definitely some guidelines to the process to make it as worthwhile as possible. But in the end, you could increase your company’s popularity and exposure both on search engines and with the general public.
Looking for SEO Help for Your Business in 2017?
Ready to boost your SEO efforts this year? Contact Sixth City Marketing today to learn how we can increase conversions and deliver real results for your website!
