Search Engine Optimization Techniques: A Modern Look

Summary: In this article, you’ll learn a handful of search engine optimization techniques to help you succeed in the post-Panda world. Not familiar with the Panda update? Don’t worry. You will be soon enough.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has come a long way over the last few years. It has gotten a lot harder to achieve top rankings in the major search engines. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, there are more websites online today than there were ten years ago. Additionally, the search engines have stepped up their scrutiny of the websites they include in their rankings. If you want to achieve top Google rankings today, you need to have a website that offers legitimate value to the reader.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques, Past and Present

Search engines are constantly evolving. So the search engine optimization techniques we use to position our websites must also evolve. That’s what this tutorial is all about.

Take the widely publicized Google Panda update for example. Here we have a major algorithm change that seeks to reward websites that publish quality content. Whether this update has achieved its intended is debatable (and the subject of another article). But you can’t deny the rapid evolution taking place in the Internet world. This is why it’s important to adjust your search engine optimization techniques to keep pace with changes in the industry.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is a fitting expression for the modern world of search engine optimization. The same recommendations that search engines have been making for years will serve you just as well today. Above all else, these recommendations call for building a website that offers unique and useful content to reader:

• You should “create a useful, information-rich site,” says Google.
• “Develop great, original content (including well-implemented keywords) directed toward your intended audience,” says Bing.
• Create “original and unique content of genuine value,” says Yahoo.

Do you see the pattern here? This has always been one of the fundamental search engine optimization techniques. But it’s more important today than ever before. If your website fails to engage your visitors, you will never achieve SEO success. More importantly, you won’t be able to convert those visitors into clients or customers. We must never forget that this is the ultimate goal of any search engine optimization technique.

In the early days of the Internet, it was fairly easy to achieve top ranking in search engines. Back then, we only had a fraction of the website volume that we have today. The competition was low. Additionally, it didn’t take much to win a search engine’s “favor.” Put up a website with some optimized content, point a few links at the site, and you could be in the top-5 Google results in a matter of days. As a result, search engine optimization techniques of the past were fairly simple. From a ranking standpoint, you didn’t even need great content back then. It just needed to be optimized. But things have changed dramatically.

Today, the search engine algorithms are much more sophisticated. They take many more factors into account when ranking websites. They pay closer attention to how people respond when they first visit your site. So it’s critical that you engage your website readers with useful content that keeps them on the site.

And this is where we have come full circle. Quality content has always been the center of all other search engine optimization techniques. The difference was that in the past you could manipulate your way around this requirement. But not anymore. If you want to achieve and maintain high rankings in the search engines today, you must engage your reader with original and useful information. I may sound like a broken record, but it’s vital that you understand this concept.

5 Modern Strategies for SEO Success

Here are some search engine optimization techniques that will help you succeed in the modern world:

1. Improve Content across Your Website

The first thing you need to do is examine the existing content on your website. How is it performing? Take a look at your website analytics program and check the bounce rates for individual pages. Do you have pages with a high bounce rate, close to 100%? If so, you need to address the content on these pages. People do not find it useful for some reasons. And this can drag your performance down across the board.

In some cases, you may need to replace or remove some of your existing content. If you have non-performing pages with low-quality and/or outdated content, you need to address the problem. This is a critical search engine optimization technique for the modern world. Why? Because Google will now penalize an entire website if it has a certain percentage of low-quality pages.

We offer website copywriting services that can make this job easier for you. Whether you are replacing existing paegs or adding new content to the site, we can take some of the burden off your shoulders. Contact us to learn more, or to get a quote!

2. Start Thinking like a Publisher

I’ve written an entire article around this concept, so I won’t repeat it all here. Here’s the short version.

Professional Internet publishers typically enjoy great success in the search engines. This is because they publish new content on a regular basis. This keeps readers coming back to the site for updates. It also feeds the search engines with a steady supply of new content. Both of these things can contribute to improved rankings.

Business owners and marketing professionals have begun to wake up to this optimization technique. They realize the importance of publishing new content on a regular basis. And you can bet that this will only make things more competitive in the future. As the volume of online content grows, it becomes harder and harder to achieve top rankings in the search engines. So you need to stay ahead of your competitors. You must publish better information, and you must do it more often than they do.

This search engine optimization technique can be implemented quite successfully by using a blog. Blogging programs simplify the entire publishing process. You no longer need web developers just to put new content online. All you need is the person writing the content. You write a new article, tutorial or product page, and then you click the “publish” button. The blogging program does the rest. This allows you to spend more time writing great website content, and less time worrying about the technical side of things.

3. Encourage Social Sharing

I don’t need to tell you how powerful the social-networking websites have become. So let’s focus on how to use these tools as a search engine optimization technique.

You can leverage social-networking services to promote your content. You can see how all of these things work together in harmony. Once you’ve developed some interesting new content for your website, you can promote it through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even YouTube. This will help you bring more readers to the site, which supports your overall business and marketing goals. But it also helps with search engine optimization. By promoting your content effectively, you will start to acquire new links to your website. This boosts your link popularity, which in turn helps to improve your search engine visibility.

You should also include social sharing features on key sections of your website. These are buttons that allow people to quickly and easily share your content online. This can help with every aspect of your Internet marketing program. It allows people to share your content with others, which will increase your readership and traffic. It also sends a positive signal to the search engines. If there is a lot of social sharing associated with your website, it will give you a nice boost in the search engine optimization department.

4. Keep People On Your Site Longer

This is one of the most important search engine optimization techniques we will discuss, and for two reasons. It will help you achieve better visibility for your website. It also helps you accomplish your broader business goals. Let’s talk about the SEO factor first.

When a person clicks through a search engine like Google to find your website, the search engine can track their behavior through the use of browser cookies. They are not doing this for Orwellian reasons. They simply want to know how people behave upon reaching your site, for quality-control purposes.

If most people hit the back button as soon as they land on your website, it is going to hurt your search engine rankings. On the contrary, if the average reader stays on the site for a while and reads several pages of content, it will reflect well upon your site. This is referred to as usage data. It’s something search engine optimization professionals have known about for quite some time. The more people interact with your site, the better you’ll do in the search engines.

So how do you keep people on your site longer? You do this in several ways. First, you must focus on developing quality content that engages and helps the reader in some way. Secondly, you must make sure your website is easy to use.

We’ve already talked about the importance of content. But website usability is equally important. Your site should be well-organized and easy to navigate. You should master the art of internal linking, which will keep people on the site longer. This is where you link to related pages on your site from the page the reader is currently visiting. (Example: Don’t forget to check out this related article about self-promoting content.)

Give people information they can use. Find a way to solve their problems or answer their questions. Give them multiple ways to navigate and search your website. All of these things will improve your usage data, which in turn helps support your SEO program.

5. Get Professional Help When Needed

No, I’m not talking about psychiatric help. Though you may need it, if you try to tackle all of this stuff on your own! All of the search engine optimization techniques covered in this article have one thing in common. They require a lot of work. No one said this was going to be easy. If Google rankings were easily acquired, everyone would be in the top spot.

We already talked about how competitive the SEO world has become. So you’ll probably find that you need help at some point along the way. I encourage the DIY spirit. At the same time, you have to realize when you’re in over your head.

We offer a variety of services that can help you achieve your SEO goals. One of the things I kept coming back to in this article is your website content. All of the other search engine optimization techniques revolve around the content on your site. This is the centerpiece of your entire strategy. It’s what separates top-ranking websites from all the others. We can help you develop engaging website content that will support your broader marketing goals.

We also provide search engine optimization consulting services. Sometimes, you have a general idea of how to proceed with a certain project, but you need to get some questions answered first. This is a common dilemma. Our consulting services can fill this “knowledge gap” and help you get started on the right foot.

If you have questions about any of the search engine optimization techniques discussed in this article, I encourage you to set up a consultation call. It’s a good springboard for some of the other services we offer. Based on this initial conversation, we can develop a plan to help you achieve your goals.