Top 10 SEO Hacks Website Owners Must Know
Do you conduct business via a website? Are you finding it difficult to get more website traffic than your competitors? Then you will find this article very insightful as I am going to list the must-use, tried, and tested top 10 SEO Hacks that will change your website game significantly.
What is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is defined as the process of continuously improving your website or webpages to rank higher on the search engine results pages SERPs. If you are confused, here’s an example to make the explanation interesting.
Imagine you own an eCommerce store that sells socks. Now, when people search for ‘buy socks online’ (keyword) on Google, they see 10 more options to buy socks from before your website. This means that your website is ranking 11th. Now, of course, people would want to buy from the first 5 websites and not from you.
So you start doing keyword research to understand the top queries, write blogs on the top keywords, make product descriptions more user-friendly and add an FAQs section on your website. After making such quality changes, you ask Google to come to your website and recheck for new content (indexing).
After Google finds your content of use to viewers, your eCommerce website selling socks will be pushed a few ranks above.
This entire process of continuously optimizing your website to rank higher on SERPs is known as Search Engine Optimization.
In my opinion, to understand SEO, you must also know about Search Engine Marketing which includes Performance Marketing, Pay-Per-Click Marketing, and much more. For this, you can enroll in an advanced digital marketing course.
There are many hacks and strategies that you can use for SEO which we will discuss below.
Top 10 SEO Hacks Website Owners Must Know
Now that we are well-versed with the concept of SEO, it is time to list down and explain the top 10 SEO Hacks website owners must know and inculcate in their digital marketing strategy-
- Keyword Research
Whether you are starting afresh or you have a website, halt everything and start your keyword research. Before creating a website, know what the users search for on Google when they want to use your product or service.
Doing keyword research will help you understand your focus keywords which should be significantly present in your website or blog content. You can use many tools to conduct keyword research such as Google Keyword Planner, SEM Rush, KW Finder, etc.
- Meta and Header Tags
What you show to the users in their first impression on the search engine result page is what will attract them to click on your website link. So ensure that the Meta Title and Description describe you the best including the top keywords.
Even with attractive meta tags, if header tags on the website are incorrect, your website will fail to rank higher. You can always use Headings in a question format such as ‘How to start with SEO? Because users most probably ask questions in the search bar.
- Content
Content is a big part of On-Page SEO. You can write quality blogs around your niche, and add testimonials, images, videos, infographics, and how-to guides.
Also, the content on your website also matters. Writing website content is not a one-time task, you must regularly update your content for Google to find you credible and authoritative.
- Landing Pages
To rank for certain keywords, you can create new landing pages. Landing pages are specifically designed and published keeping in mind the particular keyword and the search queries. Landing pages also help you rank higher on the SERPs for that particular keyword.
It is recommended that you optimize your landing page’s content regularly and try to improve page speed for better SEO. And the most important part of landing pages- CTA! Ensure that you have a Call-To-Action on all of your landing pages.
Also Read: Complete SEO Guide and Checklist : 2022
- Site Map
One website can have multiple web pages. For Google to crawl or visit a particular webpage for indexing, you need to create a site map- a map of all your important web pages. Site maps fasten the process of crawling, caching, and indexing as Google finds it easier to reach you.
Sitemap might not be the most important SEO strategy but it is definitely one of those SEO hacks that will organize your website, increase your chances of ranking on SERPs and also build credibility for your website.
- Link Building
Link Building is one of the most effective off-page SEO hacks. While content helps you build your credibility, link building helps you gain third-party credibility. Link building is the process of procuring your website links on third-party websites either for money or another link exchange.
Link building helps you improve your SEO, and build your Domain Authority and Page Authority. The latter is very important for Google’s algorithm.
- Reviews
Google wishes to open up all the space on their SERPs for user-friendly information. You must have seen a separate section for Google Reviews on the right-hand side of any SERP. These reviews are very important for the users who are looking for your product or specifically for you.
Try to get as many reviews as possible to up your SEO game and build trust with the users as well as Google.
- Competitor Analysis
Before you start with any SEO practice, the first priority or SEO hack should be to do a competitor analysis. Look at their website, blogs, and the number of backlink reviews to understand the demand of the target audience.
Competitor analysis is not done to shadow the competitor or copy whatever they do. It is conducted to understand the industry and identify the key common points that you can do better than your competitors.
- SEO Audit
One of my strongest recommendations if you want to improve your SEO is to regularly optimize on-page and off-page strategies. Google and other search engines want to make their search engine more and more user-friendly and less promotional. So they keep on adding updates to their algorithm after regular intervals. For your website to rank higher, your content must be in alignment with the Google Algorithm Updates.
- Become Google’s Best Friend
Google is offering you the space to showcase your business to an audience of 4.3 billion people. So the least you can do is not try to cheat Google by blackhat SEO techniques.
Do not try to stuff your website with keywords, add hidden texts or links, or badmouth a competitor as Google only wants you to be beneficial for the users.
How to start with SEO?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a vast ocean that you need to learn and understand before you start to create a strategy. Apart from the top 10 SEO Hacks given above, there are many advanced strategies that only industry experts can teach you. Primarily, you can enroll in an online SEO course.
Conclusion
SEO is as important for a website as engagement for social media. Try the 10 best SEO Hacks mentioned above and you will see a guaranteed change in your website performance. Hope you enjoyed reading this article!
Author’s Bio
Karan Shah
Founder and CEO at IIDE
Karan Shah is an Edu-preneur, Tedx speaker, Harvard alumnus specializing in eCommerce, and the founder of IIDE – The Digital School.
He is a reputed author on the topics of education, digital marketing, and Ed-techs. Over the years he has penned a plethora of articles in leading news outlets such as Entrepreneur, BusinessWorld, Education Times, and Youth Magazine to name a few.