Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a practice introduced by Google. It determines which websites should appear high in results for certain keywords. If SEO is not practised, anyone can exploit search engine results with some black hat methods. Also, can rank their websites higher in search engine results.
The most difficult aspect of SEO is that it is dynamic. Despite any version, Google frequently updates its algorithm 300-500 (approx) times per year. It often leaves the SEO specialists scratching their heads when understanding new updates.
According to online data, 75% of searchers (approx) never go past the first search results page. Thus, it is important to master the art of avoiding these algorithm updates and stay on top of your game. Keeping track of all the contemporary changes is near impossible. Yet, you can stay on top with these SEO techniques for 2021 and get a clear advantage over your competitors.
What would a search look like without SEO?
Without SEO, manipulation of search engine results is easy but finding useful information is difficult.
Use the below-listed SEO techniques to increase your site’s organic traffic in 2021. Although they are not the only SEO tactics you’ll need, they should be at the heart of your strategy. As you put each of these into action, you’ll be able to improve your visibility and traffic.
- Improved content style
- Reoptimize old content
- Image optimization
- Internal Linking
- Schema SEO
- Optimize your website for the ‘People also ask” feature
- Mobile-friendly design
- Optimize for faster loading speed
- Master the EAT principle
- Build Diverse Backlink profile
1. Improved Content style
In 2021, the importance of content marketing will grow. Content is a component of SEO campaigns and yields more effective results in the long term. As a result, you’ll need to create new content styles.
Inverted Pyramid: The inverted pyramid is becoming increasingly popular. Deliver the most important facts and information first, and the less important facts and information second and third.
Visual Content: Visual content does not necessarily refer to images alone. Among the many things included are animations, GIFs, infographics, and many other things.
Video Content: In the world of content marketing, video marketing has become the backbone. You will not be able to achieve success in content marketing unless you use video marketing.
2. Reoptimize old content
Almost every business uses content marketing. Many of them have several years or older content.
What is the point of reoptimizing old content?
Outdated Content with no traffic is like a bicycle with a flat tyre. You have it, but you are unable to use it.
Reoptimizing the content with less traffic, conversions, or underperforming on any other metric can help your company make the most of its resources. You can reuse the time you invested in writing and publishing it and reposition it near the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
What is the best way to reoptimize old content?
Try these proven strategies to optimize old content
- The ability to view organic traffic or conversion data for pages in Google Analytics.
- For pages, I’m looking at impression and click data in the Google Search Console.
- Using Ahrefs to analyze keyword rankings and traffic for specific pages.
Concentrate on pages that fulfil these requirements:
- Must be at least six months old.
- Previous track record of generating significant traffic or converting visitors
- About us, the services or products of the company.
- Examine the pages you’ve chosen after you’ve made your selection.
Seek out title tag updates, keyword insertions, internal linking, and other similar things. Depending on how old the content is, you may need to make more extensive updates. Some may need rewriting or updated information to perform better on search results.
3. Image optimization
The Google Images section handles more than 20% of all web searches in the United States. As a result, to dominate SEO in 2021, it is necessary to understand how to optimize any image for search.
To begin, make certain that any images you use are of high quality and relevant to your keyword phrase. If a user looks at your image, they should immediately tell what your content is about.
Always check to see that any images you use have been compressed before uploading. You might know by now that Google considers page speed to be a ranking factor in its search results. Images account for 21% of the total weight of a webpage. This means that even a single large image can cause a slowdown on a normally fast site. Squoosh is a simple and free tool that you can use to compress your images in a short amount of time.
The alt tags for images are also extremely important. Search engines use this to associate keywords with your image because it is a text alternative to images. Additionally, if your image does not load, a user will see this in the top left corner of their screen. Always include relevant information and keywords in your alt text and image description. But, avoid stuffing your content with keywords. If the inclusion of a keyword does not make sense, then it should not be included. Google may consider this to be spam and penalize your website as a result of this.
4. Internal Linking
Increasing the amount of internal linking is always beneficial for your website especially for improving ranking on Google. Title tags and meta descriptions generate more clicks, but considerable internal linking is also important.
You’re aware that you can improve the internal linking structure of your website. There are probably some opportunities there that you haven’t yet discovered. Try these internal link building tactics in 2021 to improve your web ranking and user experience.
- Create quality content and increase your chances of more internal linking opportunities.
- For improved ranking, take links from high-authority websites.
- Make use of anchor text but don’t make it look spammy.
- Internal link almost all of your web pages including the deep in the web structure.
- Make sure to use contextual links in your content and avoid any spam.
- Do not overdo internal links, use 2-5 links depending on content words per post.
- Do not reuse anchor text on different pages.
- Put links mostly in the first half of the content.
5. Schema SEO
Despite frequent algorithm updates, the content remains the most important ranking factor in SEO. However, the way search engines index and understand web content has changed significantly.
Over the years, Google has become more adept at understanding user queries and intent. As a result, it can deliver the most relevant results. The majority of businesses are unaware that schema markup and structured data play an important role. It assists webpages in transmitting information to crawlers and search engines more quickly and systematically than ever before.
It would not be wrong to state that it can be a powerful SEO approach in 2021. Because of schema and structured data, Google and other major search engines can display a direct answer to your question or pull up relevant rich snippets. As a result, include schema microdata in your HTML code so that search engine bots can easily interpret the content of your pages.
6. Optimize your website for the ‘People also ask” feature
The search engine results pages (SERPs) in 2021 include much more than the ’10 blue links’ on Google’s first page. Google introduced new features to improve the experience. One of the new ones you might see now is PAA. A feature called ‘People Also Ask’ is one of the most important SEOs to take advantage of.
The SEMrush Sensor has estimated that the average percentage of SERPs with PAA has increased to 40-42% for desktop and mobile searches.
You should be paying attention to PAA for a variety of reasons, among them the following:
- They can assist you in ranking twice on page 1. It is possible to have both a PAA result and a first-page ranking at the same time, as opposed to featured snippets.
- They can assist you in appearing at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). It appears as an answer to the number of relevant questions customers are asking. Questions appear in 75% of PAA results appearing in the first three results of a search.
- They can be referred to as query refinements. It is for the types of questions that Google may have difficulty interpreting.
Many marketers aren’t paying attention to PAA at the moment. Which means you have an opportunity to gain a competitive headstart. Take advantage of this situation.
The following is the top-level approach to winning this feature:
- With the Position Tracking tool, you can overview the existing SERP features for your target keywords. Filter them by PAA to better understand your opportunities.
- Identify any missed opportunities by using the Organic Research tool. Look at queries you already rank but do not generate PAA results.
- With the help of the Keyword Overview tool, you can generate ideas for creating content targeted at PAA results.
7. Mobile-friendly design
A vast number of searches and almost half of all online purchases are through mobile. Thus holds importance when implementing SEO. Moreover
- 85% of Americans own smartphones.
- 79% of smartphone users buy online using their devices on average yearly.
- 80% of shoppers use smartphones to read product reviews, compare prices, or find alternative store locations.
Mobile page speed is also a ranking factor. More importantly, Google has prioritized mobile devices since March 2020. They announced using its smartphone user-agent to crawl websites daily. It means the mobile version of your site is crawled and indexed first before the desktop version. To summarize, any new website you develop should be designed with the mobile user interface in mind. Of course, the web’s desktop appearance and performance are still important, but the mobile version is a priority.
8. Optimize for faster loading speed
Page loading speed is important to consider in 2021. Every company wants its website to offer a positive user experience for its visitors. Indeed, a fast website delights new and returning customers than a slow website.
To exaggerate the importance of website load speed today is not an understatement. Especially given that internet users’ behaviour is ever-changing and evolving.
These statistics prove how critical it is to optimize your website for better speed.
- 46% of people dislike slow loading pages when browsing the internet on their mobile devices.
- According to Google, 53% of mobile website visitors will abandon a website if it does not load within three seconds of their arrival.
- 47% of buyers (approx) expect e-commerce websites to load in around two seconds.
Moreover, site speed is one of the vital ranking factors prioritized by all major search engines. Even before 2010, Google stated website speed is the prime factor to determine page ranking by its algorithm.
Don’t forget that the first experience is always the most memorable. So, instead of de-motivating your customers with a slow loading website in 2021, optimize the loading speed to the max.
A few quick ways to improve the speed of your website are as follows:
- Transfer your website to a more reliable hosting service. If a website receives a lot of traffic, you might want to consider a VPS or a Dedicated server.
- Consider reducing the file size of the images on your site. You can reduce the size of images by using tools such as JPEG Optimizer, Kraken, ImageRecycle, Tiny PNG, and so on.
- Remove any JavaScript and CSS files that aren’t necessary.
- Detects 404 errors and fix them.
- Reduce the number of redirects
Try any of these popular website speed testing tools:
9. Master the EAT principle
The EAT principle helps you master long-term SEO success, despite the ever-changing Google’s algorithm. Doesn’t it sound fantastic? But what on earth is EAT, exactly?
EAT stands for expertise, authority, and dependability. It is, in essence, a measurement of your brand’s reputation on the internet. Google gives a better and higher ranking to established, authentic, and trustworthy sites than unknown sites.
If your industry is more saturated, then you may be wondering how you can beat some of your competitors. Start small, and don’t get intimidated by the task at hand. Check these tips to establish your company’s brand’s authority, trustworthiness, and reputation. Checkout:
- Encourage customers to leave reviews on reputable review sites such as Yelp, Better Business Bureau, Amazon, or Google.
- Get high-quality links from websites that are related to your industry.
- Take part in public forums and encourage others to mention you.
- Testimonials, feedback, case studies, and other forms of social proof are for demonstrating EAT on your website to visitors.
10. Build a Diverse Backlink profile
Backlinking is still an important part of search engine optimization strategy 2021.
Keep in mind that quality is important as well. Spammy links can be detrimental to your website’s performance. Links from websites with low domain authority (DA) are unlikely to be of much value. In comparison, links from older domains are of greater value than links from newer domains.
Links earned through high-quality content, outreach, and influencer marketing, are safer and effective.
But, Google is not a fan of making things simple.
Sometimes, sites with strong backlink profiles are flagged for manual review. If you don’t pass the test because your website is too clean, you could find yourself in serious trouble.
Fortunately, this is a rare occurrence. Some websites grow in popularity by gaining links from larger websites, then get some from the smaller websites too. This helps diversify the link profile while also making it appear more natural to search engines.
However, ensure that your link portfolio follows the pattern Google follows. Try these tips.
- When promoting content, don’t limit yourself to only the “heavy hitters.” Smaller sites can be beneficial as well. They are frequently more responsive and focused on a specific niche as well.
- You might make a mistake when rejecting links online. Taking down an excessive number of links can be more harmful. In comparison to taking down an insufficient number of links. Google understands that most websites will naturally accumulate a few bad links. If you are generous with what you deny, you will achieve much greater. Google will discount links beneficial to you. Google has gotten good at identifying bad links and choosing to ignore them recently.
Final Words….
Search Engine Optimization practice is here to stay for a long time and has been ever-changing since its launch. Each year Google changes its algorithm resulting in different techniques made by SEO specialists. For 2021, we have these top SEO practices that will help your website stay at a high rank throughout the year. Next year maybe the rules will be different but for now, try these out. Do let us know about your feedback and how these advanced SEO tactics helped your website.
