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It’s Free Tips Tuesday! Today we’re going to give you 5 tips to rise to the top of Google’s search results.
Whether you’re a doctor, a CPA, a lawyer, business owner or another type of professional, new clients or customers are important – and helping them find you is critical to your success. Back in the day, people would pull out their Yellow Pages (remember those huge books that used to come to your door step?) to find a retailer or service provider – but today’s world comes with the World Wide Web… an endless expanse of search engine listings, client ratings, and content. So how do you win? It’s easy – befriend Google.
Okay, well not just Google – befriend search engines in general. But let’s face it – Google is the big guy. You have likely heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by now — but what does it really mean? And how do you do it? Are there tips you can implement immediately?
SEO is your way of helping search engines find and index your content – whether that means your website, a blog, a thought leadership piece, or other material you have written and published to the Web. Google (and other search engines) use complex algorithms to quickly crawl and process data to return search results to internet users that are relevant and timely.
Here are 5 tips to increase your content’s search result rankings:
- Relevancy – Keywords are important to your SEO strategy – but relevancy is even more important… especially with Google’s recent algorithm updates. Every piece of content you write should use your selected keyword(s) at least one time every 200 words… but beyond that, your keywords should be of the utmost relevance to your content. Not only will this help your content read more smoothly, but it will also optimize your search ranking
- Early bird gets the worm – Use your keywords early in your copy – ideally, you should use the same keyword in both your subject/ headline and the first paragraph of your copy
- More than illusion – Search engines are consistently evolving their algorithms to find ways to separate websites of value from websites that focus solely on keywords, link building, and other questionable SEO practices. Elevate your thinking to publish truly relevant, unique, and engaging value-add content – the algorithms of tomorrow are looking for full base value of the whole
- The language of search – A big part of Google’s recent and coming algorithm updates center around people being able to “talk” with search. That said, variations on keywords are less important than ever (this used to be a key tactic); instead, focus on building great content around the hub of the keyword theme
- Shorter is not always better – When you develop keywords, think more in terms of key phrases (long-tail keywords). Key phrases tend to include more words – which means they are likely not as competitive in the search engines which automatically gives your content better odds. But beyond that, it also narrows down the relevancy so people who do click on your content are more likely to find what they are looking for which will reduce your bounce rates.
Implementing these 5 tips will improve your SEO. Do you have tips of your own you’re willing to share in the comments below?
