When you’re creating online content, nothing is more disheartening than putting your heart and soul into a piece of writing, or a photo or a video and feeling like no one even saw it, that it’s just floating around in the digital ether. In today’s web-savvy world, it’s no longer enough to make something awesome; you need to spend a little time thinking about optimizing your work for search engines. The following will explore several search engine optimization practices you can employ to increase your reach and pull in the right audience for your content.
Before beginning, it’s important to note that no search engine optimization tips are things that you do once and then leave alone. Each of the below suggestions needs to be revisited regularly as algorithms are always changing and evolving. Pay attention to any analytics you’re provided with and focus on repeating steps that were efficient. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can also look at which parts of your effort aren’t bringing any return and let go of some of your less effective tasks. One thing to keep in mind is that you want to keep your content creation feeling positive and manageable. If it’s a constant headache or race against the clock, you’re less likely to keep up your efforts for long enough to see the response you want.
Think About How A User Moves Through Your Site
User experience (sometimes called UX) is something that search engines are just beginning to use in their rankings but is quickly rising in importance. For example, if someone types something into the search box and clicks on what is suggested but immediately clicks back and chooses another link, search engines deem this poor user experience and are less likely to rank that page as high as they did. If, however, someone clicks a suggested link and spends a fair amount of time on the site the search engine suggested, then the search engine deems that site to have a solid user experience.
Foremost, to improve user experience, don’t use false advertising. If people think they’re getting one thing, but they’re actually finding another, they’re more likely to leave. As well, improve your site’s speed; slow loading is the most common reason someone clicks back. If you’re curious, you can check out your website’s speed and look for ways to improve that (how you embed images and videos can be a big part of slow loading).
As well, more searches are done today on phones than laptops or computers. This means you want to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly. Finally, you want to make sure all your links are functioning and test all the buttons you have on your site.
Consider Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the biggest contributors to search engine rankings. Basically, the more sites that link to your site, the more search engines believe you are being vouched for. In particular, you want sites with high domain authority to link to yours. Domain authority is a ranking given by search engines to a site that indicates how trustworthy and useful a site appears—something like a well-known news outlet or magazine or a government website. When pursuing backlinks, aim for trusted sources of information that are well established, as these backlinks will make the biggest difference.
Post Consistently
Each online platform has different recommendations for the ideal number of posts to gain traction. For instance, bloggers tend to need at least one post per week to get the ball rolling (but ideally two or three) and Instagram users tend to need one post per day or, at the minimum, one each day. When you’re building a posting schedule, be realistic (otherwise you’ll get disheartened and will be less likely to keep it up at all) and focus on posting at the same time of day. This can help ensure that your followers, readers, or viewers know when to expect new content from you and may even begin checking your site around that time. If you have people responding to your content the moment it’s posted, algorithms can interpret this as your work being of high value.
Review Your Keywords
If you’re creating regular content, you need to regularly be reviewing which keywords best suit your content and your audience. There are many keyword tracking tools in a variety of price ranges that can help you monitor which ones you need to be using. Finding that perfect balance can be tricky, but implementing accurate and appropriate keywords into your content can help drastically increase your organic reach, especially if your content is strong. Think about it; if someone searches a question and one of the headings in your article is that exact question, and they stick around on your site for a while, reading your work, search engines are going to decide that sending the user to you was a good idea. Keywords are also one of the best ways to ensure that the people who are looking for you—the ones who need your content or product or want to be cheered up by your funny videos—are going to find you.
Be Aware Of Banned Hashtags
Not everyone knows about banned hashtags, but it’s important to pay attention to them. On many platforms, there are certain hashtags that have been deemed not trustworthy, and they’re not always the ones you might think. For a while #boyfriend was banned on Instagram. If you use a banned hashtag, algorithms essentially shadowban you meaning your content is there, but it’s not being recommended to anyone. There are a plethora of reasons a hashtag gets banned, but usually, it’s because the term has been deemed commonly misused by posters. To avoid this, you need to be regularly searching for lists of banned hashtags and making sure the ones you use often aren’t on those lists.
The above information can help you improve your search engine optimization and get your content into the right hands. It’s important that you don’t consider paying for views or interactions as one of the fastest ways for an algorithm to deem you untrustworthy is when you have an extremely unbalanced set of analytics. If a page has, let’s say, 10k followers and four likes per picture, that indicates something suspicious is going on, and your site will suffer for it. This imbalance can also deter real site visitors from trusting your content, as many people are becoming wary of bots.
