No one wants to get penalized by Google and face rank drops and low traffic resultantly, hence using the SEO best practices to grow organic traffic is the best strategy one should go with.
SEO isn’t about fooling the search engines. It’s simply about creating meaningful content that people want to consume and that completely answers their search queries.
If you look at the SEO from this perspective it will be much easier to understand and simpler to use all the white hat SEO best practices to grow organic traffic on your website or blog.
What are the SEO Best Practices to Grow Organic Traffic
Gone are the days of black hat SEO tactics which gave websites loads of traffic.
Search engines are now quite smart to differentiate between the white hat and black hat SEO practices.
Accordingly, they reward or penalize the websites with search engine ranks.
The key to doing White Hat SEO is to first understand what sort of content people want.
Below we will discuss the SEO best practices to grow organic traffic.
And, why organic traffic?
It is obvious because organic traffic is almost free and is more targeted than other ways of generating traffic.
There is a high conversion ratio on organic traffic than inorganic traffic.
But growing organic traffic is not that easy, it takes a lot of effort and understanding of the search engine ranking mechanism.
Now let’s talk about how to know what are the SEO best practices to grow organic traffic and what are content topics people want so that you can write that kind of content for your target audience.
Discover the Content Demand through Keyword Research
First of all, you need to do thorough keyword research which will give you a clear idea of what content people read, share, and love.
What topics are being searched on Google and other search engines and what is the volume of those searches on a monthly basis.
This gives an indication of what content you need to write so that your content is read by people searching for those topics or keywords.
Now, if you are wondering how would I do keyword research, then you are in luck, there are a lot of free and paid tools available online to do that.
Best are the Google Keyword Research Tool and Google Trends.
Besides that, there is a long list of such tools which you can find on google.
The way to success begins with a solid plan and then unflinching determination and dedication until you achieve your goal. Keyword research is the first step in your content plan.
The second step in that plan is to read the content around that topic already available on the internet.
See what people have already written about that topic and think about how can you provide more informative and valuable content to your audience.
Create content in the language your audience want, provide references and examples in your content to make it more informative and credible.
Compliance with Search Engine Algorithm
Search engines rank a website on the basis of their algorithm which comprises over 200 different combinations.
And keyword stuffing is a big NO.
Don’t try to stuff keywords in your content to make it appear on the first page of google search results.
It will rather get you penalized. As a thumb rule, your keyword density shouldn’t be more than 2.5% in your entire content.
Try to keep your language very simple, as simple as you can. Think that an eighth-grader is going to read your content.
Choose to target keywords that are fairly popular and have high search volumes and write content around them.
Though, it is not guaranteed that you will get the first position on the search engine results pages for that keyword immediately. It depends on the competitive strength of your site.
Don’t get discouraged, every good thing takes time. Be realistic and just do your good to get results.
With the primary keyword you use, also use other keywords that are related to your target keyword within the body of your content. That is called the “keyword theme.”
Using keyword theme in the content makes the content more user-friendly and search engines understand the relevance of those different but related keywords in the content.
Include the primary keyword in all the right places like URL, title tag, alt images, body content, description, etc.
Use the primary keyword in the anchor text of old content you have on your website to link the internal links to the new content.
Do not try to deliver quantity over quality. Write thoughtful and meaningful content that your audience would love to consume.
Don’t rush into writing and publishing content every day. Rather think, research, and write content, read and edit it before you publish it online.
Make Your Website Ready for Mobile-First Indexing
Recently Google made changes to its search and indexing algorithms in which it gives priority to the mobile-first indexing.
It simply means that the mobile version of your website should be in accordance with Google’s Guidelines. The touchpoints, fonts, buttons, links, navigation, forms, sitemaps, etc., should all be optimized for Google indexing.
Content to Satisfy the Search Intent
You don’t need to be an SEO Ninja to do it right. If you understand your audience search intent and offer them the right information, you have nailed it.
Think from a searcher’s perspective.
What are they looking for, are they trying to find a solution to a problem, or are they doing some pre-purchase research for a product or a service.
The words they search clearly tells about their search intent.
For example, if someone searches with the term “Best camera phone”. It clearly tells that the searcher is trying to do pre-purchase research to buy a camera phone.
Search intent usually falls into one of these three categories:
- Learn something
- Find a solution to a problem
- Purchase something
When you put together your SEO content make sure that you offer users what they are actually looking for. If they are looking for an informative “how-to” article, don’t create content that pushes a sale. Because it won’t be appreciated by both your audience and the search engines.
Remember, Google loves you when your audience loves you first.
Try to answer the questions of your audience as accurately as you can. And in as simple language as possible.
Make your content information-rich with useful resource links and citations.
Make it clear in your title tag and meta description about what your content is all about. What the user can expect from your content and deliver the same to your audience.
Help Google Understand Your Content & Structure
Google and other search engines want to know what your content is about in order to place it in the right Search Engine Results Pages for the right search terms.
First, it is decided by the on-page signals like the inclusion of keywords in the URL, title, body content, description, alt tags, etc.
Second is by the on-site signals like the internal links from related pages on your site using anchor text that is descriptive of the content.
And it tells the search bots what to follow with this anchor text. And obviously it should be right.
The third is by the off-site signals like inbound links from 3rd party trust-worthy sites that have related content linking to your content.
A 3rd party link of your content tells search bots that your content is truly about your targeted keyword.
Quality Link Building
Link building is a very powerful way to boost search rankings.
But, it should be quality link building, which means that people love your content and include it on their website, make a reference signal to it. Also, link building can drive referral traffic to your site.
It is kind of a bonus for putting in your efforts for SEO best practices to grow organic traffic on your website.
Summary
Learning and using SEO Best Practices to Grow Organic Traffic is not that difficult as it looks from outside.
In fact, it is very easy if you keep the above-discussed points in mind while you write or produce your content.
More you focus on serving the search intents, the more benefit you will drive.
And your audience and the search engines would love you. It will make your content and website more credible.
