SEO Tips for 2017 from Top SEO Experts

The venue for e-marketers has grown tremendously over the past several years. Businesses are taking advantage of various social media sites and the increasing proportion of consumers who are looking online for products and services. Quality content has moved to the forefront as a necessity for companies looking to increase their rankings with Google. In spite of all these changes, SEO remains the single most important factor for helping businesses grow.

Many businesses have made the mistake of ignoring the need for quality SEO while others simply aren’t giving it the professional attention it really needs. Companies that have made it to the top already know that taking care of your own SEO needs is akin to letting a shoe salesman pull your tooth! Below are some top SEO tips that will help you make the right choices in SEO services to get better rankings and reach more of your target audience.

1.  Use a Variety of Related Keywords Instead of Just One – The way keywords are used has changed in recent years. The practice of repeatedly placing the same keyword throughout a document has gone from increasing ranking to getting you penalized. Social Media Examiner recommends searching for synonyms, related phrases, and concepts related to your primary keyword and placing them into longer, well-written content. The blog post goes on to say that there are multiple online tools that can help businesses expand their keyword lists. Sites like Seed Keywords, Soovie, and Google Keyword Suggest Tool connect with multiple sources to get new keyword ideas while sites like Synonym.com and Reference.com will provide you with synonyms.

2. Research the Competition –This tip is one that has been given to marketers since long before the internet came into play. Today, a global marketplace and far-reaching arms of numerous businesses just like yours make it even more important today. You need to find out what those businesses like yours are doing that makes them stand out from all the others. Entrepreneur recommends using the private browsing option on your web browser to go to Google.com. Private browsing prevents past searches from interfering with the current results. Check out what is on the first page when you search with your primary keyword. This is a simple way to get a list of the competition that is ranking the highest on Google. Find out what they are doing to get top rankings and determine what you can do to improve your own website.

3. Focus on Long Content–A blog post in Backlinko talks about a number of studies including their own that shows a correlation between long content and higher rankings, particularly that which is 1000 words or greater. The article continues with the suggestion that the primary keyword should appear in the title and early in the article so that it is more likely to be included in the introduction that appears in the search results.

4. Test Your Home Page – SEO is primarily about getting visitors to your website but when a website is too slow to load, visitors are likely to call it quits and go to some other site to find what they are looking for. Thanks to improvements in technology, consumers are more demanding about how fast they find what they need and the speed with which they can make transactions. If your website isn’t accommodating, it will cost you in the end. Neil Patel explains that a website that takes too long to load is the “kiss of death” in the marketplace today. According to data they provide from Strange Loop, even a one-second delay in page load can translate into a 7% loss in conversions. That figure could result in thousands or even millions of dollars of missed sales! To solve the problem, the company recommends eliminating everything from your website that might be slowing it down. Don’t make the mistake of only viewing your website from the administrator’s view. Try it out firsthand to see what type of experience visitors are encountering. Have other people try the website out and you may even consider hiring a company that provides this specific service. Overlooking the speed of your website could be one of the most expensive mistakes you make.

5. Link to Other WebsitesNeilpatel repeats the advice of Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger Media, which advises you to link websites to others with relevant content. Just as some people mistakenly believe that SEO has lost significance to today’s online businesses, Clark explains that his belief is that link building also remains a fundamental part of a smart SEO strategy. Not only do experts agree, but some suggest that it is one of the most important SEO tips businesses should take notice of today. The fact that Google relies on the quality of external links to determine how good your website is makes it a tip that is easy to understand. If you don’t know how to do link building, hire an SEO service that will do it for you.

6. Choose the Perfect Domain Name – Your domain name is your first opportunity to get your primary keyword out there and focus on your location. If you have a furniture store in Orange County, include Orange County Furniture in your address. Make sure you research your first choice to make sure it isn’t already registered to another user. Sometimes it can be difficult to get exactly what you need, especially if you insist on a .com extension. Search Engine Journal recommends focusing more on creating a relevant and attention-getting domain instead of worrying about the extension. When it comes to SEO, the words matter more than having an .html, .php, or .net extension.

7. Include Keywords in Your Page URLs–When you go to various pages on a website, the URL is frequently something like “http://thewebsiteaddress.com/12345. Instead, Goins Writer recommends naming the page in the URL. For example, the above page would become “http:thewebsiteaddress.com/EmergencyPlumbingServices”.

8. Stay Current – SEO remains vital to a successful website but the factors that make it good SEO are continually changing. The same SEO tips that will help you get better results today may be quite different tomorrow. Make sure you have the expertise to keep your SEO strategies current or you hire the service providers that will keep you ahead of the competition.

No business in any industry or of any size can afford to ignore the issue of SEO for their website. Whether your target audience is local or global, your best chance for attracting more business is by making your product appealing and readily available to everyone who is searching for it. Following as many of the SEO tips listed here as possible will help improve your rankings and make your website more attractive to the potential customers who are looking for you.