How to boost your SEO rankings

With talk on the web about another Google update around the corner we take a look at the key trends in SEO and how you can stay on top while giving your SEO a good spring clean.

From 21st April Google will take into consideration how mobile-friendly your website is, meaning that Google will look at where access to your site comes from and the user journey from mobile devices including phones and tablets. This data will be used to influence your website ranking position which is a huge deal in the mobile world.

Social media integration

Content on social media has an impact on search rankings. By posting content on your social channels and engaging with your customers, you will not only build upon your web presence, but will also create brand advocates.

By Synchronising keywords within your content and social campaign you will send out social signals that will be seen when customers are searching the web. This not only improves your search visibility but also provides social proof to your audience that you a trustworthy company.

 Conversational key word phrases

Since the Google Hummingbird algorithm was released in 2013 there has been more of a focus upon the meaning of the key search terms. The Hummingbird pays attention to individual words in a search query, to its relevancy and quality. This means that the pages that match more of the word meaning within the content will rank higher than pages that just match a few words.

 Content is King

Since Bill Gates wrote the words “Content is King” way back in 1996, this saying has been heard by many. However the importance of high quality content on your website, blog and across social platforms is as essential for your website to feature highly in search rankings today as it has ever been.

Content should be relevant to your customers and unique to your company with the right level of key words. The content should sound natural with a key word density of 2.45% – roughly 4-5 times within the content depending on the length of the content, of course. Your content needs to engage with your audience proving them with the information they are looking for.

Traditional links

It seems that traditional methods in link building are becoming a thing of the past.

In a very recent webmaster hang out on 13^th February 2015, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Muller discussed link building and when asked if link building was any good for webmasters his reply was the following-

“In general, I’d try to avoid that. So that you are really sure your content kind of stands on its own and make it possible for other people of course to link to your content.

We do use links as part of our algorithm but we use lots and lots of other factors as well. So only focusing on links is probably going to cause more problems for your web site that actually helps.” 

So your website needs to be mobile friendly, have high quality content and definitely NO unnatural links to boost your rankings.

If you would like to know more or need help with your SEO, Generate UK have an experience team of dedicated SEO experts who would be delighted to advise you further