SEO Best Practice for 2018

Leverate’s Adinah Brown details how to ensure your company’s web presence is at its absolute optimum

Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are like peanut butter and jelly—you can have them on their own, but they are better together. While SEO and content are good alone, the best marketing strategies should always have both.

The technical aspects of optimization continue to change, especially with off-page SEO. A few years ago, businesses could depend on automated article marketing links and directory listings for better rankings. Today, however, content marketing has entered the scene as a primary link-building tactic for most optimization efforts.

Link building might not be the only reason marketers encourage businesses to invest in content, but it is certainly a major one. Delivering value in content should be a key strategy in achieving greater conversions.

SEO: Key to Better Content Promotion

New content requires frequent promotion. The first few months after beginning a content marketing strategy will see you exerting efforts in sharing the content you generate with others, whether through paid or organic campaigns. After the initial push however, you will see yourself stopping the promotion of the assets you’ve created.

This is when SEO comes in. Search engines never forget. Properly optimized content enables search engines (such as Google) to attract new audiences long after you’ve stopped heavy promotions. Apart from serving as daily reminders to keep content relevant, the long-term memory of search engines also benefits businesses by increasing brand awareness.

2018 remains a mystery for the future of SEO and content. Still, this should not stop you from pursuing better SEO practices to ensure you remain on top.

This Year’s Best SEO Practices

Reaping the benefits of a well-built optimization strategy starts with a plan. During the creation of your strategies, consider the following practices:

Prioritize Keywords

There was a time when a single keyword appearing multiple times in an article was an acceptable strategy. From SEO’s standpoint today, it’s a different story. Ever since the introduction of latent semantic indexing—a process that assesses the frequency of a term on web pages—search engines have become smarter.

One of the most important things you should do is use target keywords throughout the entire copy in a way that sounds natural. Keyword stuffing is no longer acceptable; it’s all about making the keywords appear as if they belong in the copy, as opposed to being forced in just to meet some quota.

But how do you know which phrases or words to use?

Begin by developing a list of keywords that are relevant to your content. Prioritize keywords according to context, audience interest, and the competition. Research which keywords your competition may be using. Test and adjust.

Proper Use of Headers Matter

Whether it’s a blog post or web page, how you organize content is important. In SEO terms, proper use of H1, H2, H3 tags enables search engines to better understand what the content is about. Apart from organizing the copy, headers can also optimize blogs and web copies with keywords.

Localize your Content

Does your business have multiple locations? If so, localizing your content makes a big difference in ranking results. Studies show that 75% of consumers prefer to buy products in their native language. Content localization enables you to market better with different consumers.

Localization will require translation of the copy in different languages; in some cases, simple spelling changes will do the trick, whereas in others, copy adaptation by a translator knowledgeable in both your industry and the culture of the target country, may be necessary, hence it is worth looking at Lost in Translation: How to ensure your marketing content is accurately translated.

Considering how your readers from other countries or regions speak makes the content sound more authentic, allowing your business to gain consumer trust, which will go a long way in boosting your SEO efforts.

In the field of SEO, things are always changing. What might be the best practice today may not be relevant tomorrow. Stay ahead of the game and don’t get left behind. Follow these practices today and always check for changes.

Your consumers will love you for it.