3 Easy Ways to Improve Your SEO

As an online business owner or blogger, SEO is likely something you’ve heard about. Maybe you’ve tried to implement some simple strategies on your own but maybe, like many others, you’ve just felt confused and out of your element.

SEO, when done properly, is a fairly straightforward process! Today we are going to talk about 3 easy areas you can improve your SEO.

1. Use Longtail Keywords

Keywords are the basis to search engine optimization. A keyword is essentially a word or topic that defines what your content is about. If you are writing about food, your keyword might be “bagels” or “vanilla cake”.

Keywords that are less than two words are classified as short tail keywords. These types of keywords are incredibly hard to rank for because:

1. Short tail keywords often yield a high volume of searches each months
2. The websites ranking in the number one place are often big websites (like Wikipedia).

In other words, competition is fierce for the majority of short tail high-volume keywords.

If you want to rank on the first page, you’re going to need to use long tail keywords.

A longtail keyword is more or less a string of short tail keywords that forms a phrase. If we revisit our example on food, we can create a long tail keyword from the word “bagel” by turning it into something like “easy rainbow bagel recipe” or “homemade vanilla cake without eggs”.

The more specific you make your keywords, the easier they will be to rank for on the first page!

When creating your content, try to think of ways you can incorporate long tail keywords in.

2. Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is content that will always be relevant and doesn’t have an “expiration” date. If you want your SEO efforts to go further, creating evergreen content is key.

By creating content that is always relevant you are ensuring your website will stay up longer in the search results.

For example, you could write a blog post titled “Best Restaurants in Austin, Texas in 2018” but by the time 2019 rolls around, your content will be outdated!

Evergreen content will not only rank longer in the search results, but the benefits of evergreen content include:

• New leads
• Brings in new clients
• Creates less work
• Generates backlinks

3. Keep Your Site Running Fast

Google and other search engines don’t like including slow websites in the search results. A slow website leads to poor user experience, so make sure your website is running quickly! Not to mention, most visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

First, test your website’s current speed with a tool like GTMetrix by adding your site URL and clicking “Analyze”.

You can keep your site running fast by:

• Using a caching plugin
• Ensuring your photos are compressed
• Having your web developer get rid of any excess code that your website doesn’t need

In Conclusion

The first step to understanding SEO is to take time to get familiar with key areas and build up your knowledge.

Focusing on long tail keywords, creating evergreen content and keeping a fast website will help your SEO and help you rank higher within the search results!