Search Engine Optimization Best Practices

Search Engine Optimization is the technique to improve the quality and quantity of traffic on your website or a page from the search engine. The main goal of SEO is to target unpaid users rather than paid users. Here we discuss some Search Engine Optimization Best Practices.

Most of the searchers never go past through the first page of the search results. This is why it is important to rank on the first page of google.

There are basic techniques and strategies you can follow to get a higher rank on google. They are as follows:

1. Align your content with search intent. 

First Search Engine Optimization Best Practices is Alignment. Search content is also called user intent. Understanding and satisfying the user’s intent is Google’s main priority. Pages that rank on the first page of Google have passed all the Google litmus test om search intent.

There are four common types of search intent:

• Informational

The search is informational when the user is looking for specific information. For example: “best steel company”, “what was the weather yesterday”, etc.

• Navigational

The search is navigational if the user is looking for a specific web site or app.

• Commercial

The search intent is commercial when the customer is looking for a product but hasn’t made the final decision yet. For example: “best camera tools”, “best android smartphones”, etc.

• Transactional

In transactional intent, the searchers intent to buy. The searcher has already made a decision. For example: “buy iphone10”, “buy android television”, etc.

Conclusion: Create content based on the search intent of the target audience.

2. Write a compelling title tag and meta description

The page title and meta description are the two important meta tags on your page.

Title tags:

The title tag is the clickable headlines that appear in the search result. They are very important from an SEO perspective. It gives a quick insight into the content of the result. It is the primary piece of information the user used to decide which result to click on.

Google search engine typically displays a 50-60 character of a title. Google will show all the titles as long as you keep your title tag under 50-60 characters.

Other best practice to keep in mind while creating title tags:

• Include your target keyword in your title.
• Avoid creating a duplicate title.
• Keep the title short but informative.
• Write a title that matches search intent.

Meta descriptions:

Meta descriptions are the second most important meta tag on the page.

It is a short description of a page in SERP(Search Engine Result Page) displayed just below the title tag. They can influence title click rates.

Google only displays 155-160 meta descriptions. So, it is important to keep your meta description under 160 characters keeping in mind to give an accurate summary of the result page.

Best practices to follow while writing meta descriptions:

• Write unique meta descriptions for each page.
• Include your target keyword.
• Match search intent.
• Provide an accurate summary.

Also Read: Keyword Placement Guide For New Blog

3. Optimize your images

 Images play a vital role in improving the user experience of the visitors on your site. When used in the right way image can contribute to your site’s SEO and improve the traffic on the website.

Below are the things you can implement to optimize your image.

•  Choose the best file format

Site speed is an important ranking signal and images are the largest contributor to the page size. So, you need to optimize your images for speed to improve the overall performance of your web site.

The most commonly used image formats are JPEG and PNG. Both of them use different compression techniques which makes the difference in image size.

JPEG looks great for photographs but PNG images are best preferred for images with text.

•  Compress your image

The larger the size of your image, the longer the web page takes to load. So, you need to compress your image before uploading them on the site.

You can use different types of tools to compress your images such as TinyPNG, ImageOptim, ShortPixel, etc.

•  Provide alt text for images

Adding alt text to images improves web accessibility and helps the browser better understand the images on your site. When creating alt text focus on useful informative content that uses keyword appropriately and is in the context of the page content.

Avoid duplicating your target keyword in the alt text. This may result in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam. 

When writing alt text for images, be precise and descriptive.

•  Lazy-load your images

The lazy loading technique postpones the loading of the non-critical resources like images, videos, etc. at page load time. Image and videos are loaded only when the users need them.

When we lazy load images and videos, we reduce initial page load time, initial page weight, and system resources usage which have a positive effect on the performance of the web page.

4. Optimize your page speed

 If your site takes a lot of time to load, you are going to have a lot of unsatisfied users. And automatically the ranking of your web site will drop. You can use tools like PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix to optimize your page speed.

Things you can perform to optimize your page speed

• Compress your images.
• Minimize CSS and JS files.
• Remove unnecessary plugins.
• Reduce server response time.
• Reduce the number of redirects.

5. Improve the user experience on your web sites

User experience is one of the key factors in improving your search ranking. Page speed plays important role in improving the user experience of the visitors on your site.

Techniques to improve the user experience:

• Use subheadings.
• Avoid using intrusive popups.
• Use white spaces.
• Make your content attractive.

 

6. Include keywords in the URL

 The URL of the website should give a short idea of what the result page is all about. The URL should be as simple as possible keeping in mind that it should give a hint of the website information.

Ways to create well-structured URL 

• Use short URLs.
• Remove unnecessary stop words.
• Use the keyword in the URL.

7. Publish long-form content.

Long-form content ranks higher on Google. Several studies claim that long-form articles get (post with 3000+ words) more traffic, more shares, and more backlinks than an article of average length (post with 900-1200 words).

You should publish long-form articles which is helpful for Google users. Google focuses on the need of the users over SEO. If your article is good than it may help on the SEO of your websites.

Conclusion

The above-outlined techniques and guidelines of Search Engine Optimization Best Practices are very helpful to achieve a higher search ranking on google. In conclusion, the higher you rank on the google search, the higher the chances that your web site be visited by the users. So, you have to make your website following the SEO trends which leads to your website rank higher, and ultimately chances that users visit your website increase.