Investing in Google SEO, does it still make sense? 24 Tips

Loes Knetsch ^©

The Google update on 3 June to the search engine led on some websites daily traffic to a fall by 50 percent. How does Google’s SEO algorithm work? Investing in Google SEO, does it still make sense? Or is SEO “dead”? Google is constantly changing the algorithm. Where in the past the focus was on keywords, it has now shifted to the complete article and the relevance of the piece. Below is a list of 24 tips that you can easily implant in your article and in your SEO back office.

What is SEO (search engine optimization) about?

SEO is about improving the quality, quantity, and popularity of your website. It’s all about becoming an authority in your niche. You become an authority by answering the questions that seekers have better than your competitors and by making your answers visible. As long as you are working on that, you will grow.

Google’s algorithm reacts to quality

The quality of your answers and the questions that seekers have didn’t change much during the last years. This means that your positions in the search results are fairly stable. A good page will continue to score high. Now the main thing is to provide as many pages as possible on your website with such quality that not one, but several pages get the top ranking from Google.

Important: Make sure the Google bots can scan your website.

What should you think about with good SEO?

1. Understand what SEO is.

SEO is actually the art and science of fulfilling the needs of searchers. Keywords are translated needs of searchers.

2. Answering questions from seekers better than the competitor.

So don’t think in terms of keywords, but in terms of questions, needs and problems.

3. Ensure that your navigation is easy and well-arranged.

People who are visiting my website are mainly searching for free tools and training, and that’s what they find in my top menu. This article will be categorized under Tutorials/SEO and can be found on my WordPress website tutorials for beginners. Make sure that your main items are in your top menu, and that you have categorized your posts in WordPress.

4. Immerse yourself in the questions that your visitors may have.

Find out why people come to your website or want to read your article. What would be the questions your visitors type into the Google search bar? Questions for this article might be:

Does it make sense to invest in SEO?
How can I understand the Google algorithm?
Is SEO dead?
Why is SEO so important on a website?
What is SEO marketing services?
Free training for SEO website

5. Use a good keyword research tool.

A good keyword tool will show you hundreds of search terms and you’ll be able to analyze them. This can help you discover new keywords and gain more insight into the underlying information needs. By studying the keyword suggestions, you gain insight into the needs of the target group. Furthermore, you can find keywords that you would not easily think of yourself. There are numerous good keyword research tools online, I use Jaaxy. I like the ease of it. You can try out 30 searches with Jaaxy yourself to see if it will suit your needs.

6. Search for low-hanging-fruit keywords and long-tail keywords.

Generally, the higher the search volume of a keyword, the more competition there is and therefore the more difficult it is to rank. Low-hanging-fruit means basically that high ranking authority websites are not using them. For starting entrepreneurs it is useful to focus on long-tail keywords containing 3, 4, or 5 words with a low search volume. It is better to have a second position on a keyword with a search volume of 100 than to be on the 10th page on a keyword with a search volume of 15000. It’s not very likely that searchers click through 10 search pages.

7. Make sure the name of your website matches what your website publishes.

The name of my website is Work at Home, the Future is Yours. And on this website, you can expect articles that stimulate the creation and development of a website for a home based job.

8. Make sure that it is immediately clear what the article is about.

Naming the keyword phrase on specific places and using synonyms makes it clear to your visitor and to the Google search engine. The search engine looks like a searcher in determining what the most important topics are. The seeker sees the title first, then the introduction and will often screen the headings after that. Make sure the keyword – the subject of the page – is clearly visible at the beginning of the page in the title and in the introduction. It is always better to first write the text with the aim of helping the searcher as best as possible solve his or her problem and then to see if the keyword you want to rank on naturally fits in the text. Always keep in mind that you write for your visitor and check after that if it is also clear to the search engine.

Make your texts clear.

Use H1-H6, strong and italic to attend your visitors to important pieces of a paragraph. Make lists and keep your paragraphs short. (at most 7 sentences).

Important: Give each page a different title and keyword phrase.

H1 = The title
H2 = Keyword phrase – (only use this once)
H3 = Subheadings (is used by the visually impaired people to screen the page)
H4 – H6 = to highlight a sentence

How to use your keyword phrase?

The first lead is in the URL – You can shorten it (skip: a- the – it – from – as – in etc.)
The URL for this page is https://workathomefuture.com/investing-google-seo-still-make-sense

The second place where you tell your visitors and Google SEO about your article will be in the title.
My title is:

“Investing in Google SEO, does it still make sense? Tips”

As third, you tell something about your article, using your keyword phrase, in your introduction. The first paragraph on the page. Throughout the whole article, you use synonyms and words from your keyword phrase in a natural readable way. Your visitors will get a clear view, and Google’s search bots will be pleased to see the creatively formed content.

9. Google your keyword phrase.

Look at what Google itself is suggesting.

You might be able to use the suggestions as sub-headings. In the meantime, also look at the titles and meta descriptions of your competitors, which are now on page no # 1.

10. Don’t copy text from other websites.

When you copy text from others, Google will check which text was published first and you’ll be penalized. However, you can get inspired by reading blogs of others. Or using quotes.

Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first ~ Wendy Piersall Click To Tweet

11. Never promise anything you cannot deliver.

The visitors come to your page with a reason. Make sure he/she is landing on your page finding relevant answers. So don’t promise something you can’t deliver. When people click on your link and leave the page within seconds because they don’t find what they are looking for, that’s not a good sign for Google. Your bounce rate will become sky-high.

12. Advertising.

In the video below on point 15 Share on Social Media, you can see that advertising doesn’t affect your ranking. That’s a myth. Please refrain your website from multiple pop-ups and lots of advertisements all over the place. When you want a pop-up, choose an exit pop-up. That only will appear when your visitors leave your website. Pop-ups during reading an article are very annoying for your visitors. When people like your website and want to receive your newsletter, they will apply for it when you have a sign-up form in your sidebar.

13. Your first sentence must be catchy.

When you read all the way down here, I must have done something good 😉 Numbers attract, so consider to use them. To get some great headlines and ideas, please visit my 301 Cool Amazing Free Website Tools page, you will find some great tools under the category “Slogan/Title generators“.

14. Revamp old articles

Update old articles on your website, Google likes it very much that you keep your website up to date. Also, try to upgrade all your articles to at least 1000 words.

15. Social Media – Share your articles.

And add Social Media buttons to your website make it easy for your visitors to share your article on theirs. The most popular at the moment are Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram. Complete your profile on the platforms you decide to use and add your website URL to them. And if you have your own YouTube channel, please share that one too and add your website URL to every description on your own YouTube video’s. Unfortunately, Google + have stopped its services. Choose 2 or 3 to be active on, Social Media eats your time as a bear eats from the honey …

How often should you share on Social Media?

Facebook: 1 post per day
Twitter: 15 Tweets per day
Pinterest: 11 Pins per day
LinkedIn: 1 post per day
Instagram: 1-2 posts per day

Google is married to YouTube.

When you use a YouTube video on your website, be sure you give a description from the video above and beneath your used video. That way, Google knows what the video is about. Try to find for every post an applicable video.

What are some of the biggest myths about Google SEO?

There is a lot of rumor about Google SEO, that they give certain websites an advance. They just want the best experience for their customers. Don’t buy SEO e-books from people who say that they have THE SOLUTION to making money online by adjusting to the SEO for Google to rank on page #1. Just focus on your article and write the best answers for your visitors ever.

Don’t place your video above the fold.

Above the fold, that’s what your visitors see when they open your website. Videos can slow down your website, that’s why you shouldn’t place them on top, it will affect your loading time.

16. Use as little professional jargon as possible.

And if this is unavoidable, try to write an explanation for the laity. Your texts must be understandable for everyone. Therefore, read your texts aloud to see if the sentences are correct.

Don’t you think it’s remarkable that advertising agencies focus their text on 12-13-year-olds?

17. Only a website with your company info will not score highly.

Google reacts to activity. If you want to make it online with your website, having a blog is highly recommended. When you have a lack of time to maintain a blog you could possibly consider attracting a good writer.

18. Fill in an attractive meta description.

Google does not use the meta description when ranking pages. The description after the page title has the most influence on the click-through rate in the search results, this can indirectly influence the ranking. We want people to click and to stay on our websites. Try to create a combination in the description of summarizing the web page ánd arouse the reader’s curiosity. And even when Google doesn’t use it anymore, you’d rather have a good catchy sentence in the search results than a collection of single words randomly picked from your article by Google.

When you use a WordPress website, you can choose from several free SEO plugins. I use SEO all in one, but Yoast is also recommended.

19. Open a Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools account.

In the Netherlands, we have the expression “Measuring is knowing”. Google Analytics can tell you a lot about your visitors, where they come from and other data. Use Google Webmaster tools for an analysis of your website. And send in a sitemap. That means that you have registered your website with Google and Google knows it’s out there and is able to crawl your data.

20. Images and pictures.

Do you create your own images? Then you can share them on websites under Creative Commons and ask for credit/ link to your website. When you use your own images on your website, you can add your website URL as a watermark on it.

The use of the alt tag.

The alt-tag is used to tell the search engines what an image is about. Your image can come up in the image search of Google when you’ve added the alt-tag.

It’s also wise to rename and resize your images before you upload them. A URL with SEO_google_suggestions.png can have a better effect on your image ranking than Olympus896992520.

Use a few images throughout your post, it makes the readability much more pleasant for your readers.

21. Host your website with a reliable and fast service.

Nothing is more annoying than a website that is unreachable every time. When your website is offline, you will not rank for sure. Also, take a look at what services the hosting companies offer. Do you have free email addresses with it? SSL? Can you host multiple websites? Is there a limit of GB? There are quite some differences in the pricing and features of hosting packages. I host my websites at Wealthy Affiliate on the Siterubix platform. They have everything included, email addresses, up to 50 websites, complete training course, support, SSL and overall security. I am very satisfied with the price/quality ratio.

22. Link building

When you link between web pages you can use descriptive words, try to detect which keywords the page is using where you link to and use them too. Linking makes sense. Think carefully about which articles will also be of interest to your visitor. Then link to a page where the topic is further explained. Check occasionally if your outbound links still work and if they still have added value. You can use an online broken link checker to find internal and external 404 URL’s.

Internal link building

You can link to additional info on your own website, related articles can be of help to your visitors.

External link building

When you want to let your visitors dive into the matter deeper, you can link to in-depth articles on other websites. The subject of this paragraph is about Google SEO and link building. Google gives its own view about link building here.

Take it from me, the easier you can get a link on an “authority” website, the less worth it is. Link building is a way to advertise, a form of PR. What can you do yourself to get your URL out there?

Place comments (don’t spam, leave your URL in the intended box, not in the comment!).

Write guest blogs, they often allow a link to your own website.

Interview a celeb or influencer in your niche.

Review an authority website, contact them and ask for background info and share with @ on Social Media.

What is an outbound link worth?

That depends on a few factors:

The age of the website, how old is the domain, how much trust has it?

The anchor text, is the text relevant to your article? Don’t use “read more or continue”, link with an applicable sentence that gives an impression of what to expect when you click on that link.

How relevant is the website to your niche?

Can Google bots follow your link, or did you place a no-follow?

Are your links divers? Or do you link over and over again to the same sign-up page?

How many links have you incorporated? You know, it can be TOO much.

Which text is around the link? Does it make sense?

What should you definitely not do?

Buying links, you often end up with a lot of robot clicks, and it leads nowhere.

Hide links, it was very common back in the old days to use Black-head-methods. Webmasters would add hundreds of links to pages in the background color, not visible for the visitors, but they were there alright. Google didn’t like that and adjusted the algorithm accordingly. Sites with this way of acting are severely punished.

23. The structure of your website.

Logic is made for Google. Google also thinks from the customer’s perspective, not from the website builder’s point of view. Therefore give the necessary attention to the logical structure of your website.

Do you have a good 404 page?
Do you have a Home button on your menu?
Is there a contact page?
Do you have an about me page?
Is it easy to reach your last posts?
Are your posts categorized?
Do you have an archive page?
Create a FAQ page when applicable.

Google loves structure, in principle, every page on your website must be reachable in 3 clicks.

Flash, Java, and Scripts

Google doesn’t read Flash or Java, so, please avoid to use them. And if you must, do not add any of these codings on top of your website.

24. Basics of SEO

SEO is structural work on marketing. It is more than just keywords. It is about the entire marketing strategy.

Therefore, try not to see all search engine optimization tips as separate SEO tips, but as a whole. It’s all about fulfilling needs. To make a better website structurally. With a logical layout, logical references, logical topics, and understandable sentences.

Do you want to get serious? View our website building platform and SEO course by clicking this link for more info.