Adaption is essential for survival in the real world, and in the world of SEO. In professional football, the team that adapts and alters their game plan each week has a better chance of winning than the team who makes no changes in strategy. SEO is no different than this. If you want to figure out search engines, you have to be open to trying new strategies. As we all know from their algorithms in 2012, search engines are no longer the pushovers they were known to be in 2011. They have adapted and changed, it is time the webmaster did the same.
Here are just a few ways you can change up your strategy when you look to tackle the ever strong search engines in the New Year. We are now in the second week of the new year, now is the time to make the necessary changes to your SEO tactics.
Optimize Keyword Targeted Pages:
No matter how long or well written a page is, if you don’t optimize based on search queries customers use, then the page really isn’t optimized. You can research keywords using the keyword generator, Webmaster Tools, or Google Analytics for any ideas on pages you have; that way your fresh content will have some key search terms people are using. But do be careful not to commit the guilty crime of keyword stuffing. Always remember that only 10% of your content should be keywords. Also, if you do have some great content, and you can’t really fit any keywords into it, go ahead and publish it anyway. The more fresh content on your site, the more domain strength you will have.
Social Media:
Social Media has become increasingly important, especially in 2012, for SEO practices. It is important that you take full advantage of the power of social media sites. When you post something, you want to make sure that the message is interesting, clear, concise, and shows your customers exactly what you have to offer. In order for social media sites to be fully effective, you need to build up an audience. You need to fully participate in building relationships and followers. Make sure you build up a strong, loyal audience.
Other Devices:
Of course today, people are not just using computers or laptops to conduct search results. People are using smart phones, iPads and other tablets to conduct search results. It is important that your website is adaptable to these smart phones and tablets. Search engines keep track of the results people are getting from their smartphones and tablets. If your website is not compatible to smartphones and tablets, you need to fix this right away, before your rankings are affected.
These are just a few SEO tactics to keep in mind as we progress through 2013. The strategies that you used in 2012 are still relevant. This is just to remind you that there is nothing wrong with adapting and creating new strategies to combat search engines. With 2012 behind us, we are all well aware of what search engines are capable of (need I mention the algorithms of Panda and Penguin?!). But as 2013 pushes on, we are better equipped to combat the growing powers of the search engines.
By Joe Giorgianni