It’s official: 2023 has already been described as the “Year of SEO.” Businesses are more aware than ever of their need for digital marketing strategies. They are seeking answers about how to improve SEO results in the short term and the long term, how to use SEO results to differentiate their brands, and how to drive competitive traffic to their websites.
But they’re also navigating economic tightening and inflating; the time for grand investments in digital strategies may have passed. Today, companies are under pressure to find ways to improve SEO and drive traffic without the need for constant re-investment.
Many businesses believe that the key to content marketing success lies in churning out a continuous stream of new content. While freshness is essential for engaging audiences and generating SEO results — more so last year than any other — solely relying on new content seldom yields immediate results.
Ultimately, there is always a further incentive to keep working on content and prioritizing how to improve SEO on Google — but brands should pause before they start crafting brand-new pieces.
How to Improve SEO Step #1: Know Thyself (and Thy Website)
No matter what Google prioritizes in its core updates, knowing your own website will be beneficial. In fact, simply auditing your existing content will probably alert you to numerous actions you could take to improve SEO results by optimizing what’s already there.
Performing a content audit by scouring the pages of your website is a solid place to start. You can then ask the following questions:
- Where are your landing pages?
- Where do these pages lead?
- Are there any pages that are hidden, with no internal links taking people there?
This audit is your chance to identify pages that are performing well and those that may need improvement. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can provide valuable insights into which pages are driving the most traffic and which keywords are bringing visitors to your site. This data, in turn, can help you improve your SEO results simply by taking a look under the hood.
How to Improve SEO Step #2: Tweak, Update, Refresh, and Optimize
You can breathe new life into your existing content by refreshing it. Consider:
- Adding internal links to improve website navigation.
- Breaking up lengthy paragraphs with images or subheadings for improved readability.
- Removing outdated information, typos, and errors.
- Incorporating new, relevant keywords to optimize title tags, headers, meta tags, and body content.
- Adding ALT text to all images.
- Repurposing existing content into multiple formats (into a video, social media posts, etc.).
- Avoiding keyword stuffing, which can harm your SEO results.
Once content itself is optimized, you could leverage structured data markup to improve your whole website’s visibility in search results. It provides search engines with additional context about your content, making it more likely to appear as rich snippets or featured snippets in search results.
How to Improve SEO Step #3: Boost Your Vitals
While content is vital, website speed and efficiency are equally important for search engines. With mobile-friendliness now a critical ranking factor, optimizing your site for mobile devices is imperative. This involves:
- Ensuring mobile-friendly layouts.
- Testing content display on mobile screens.
- Addressing speed impediments.
If you can optimize the content currently on your site for mobile, you can show that your brand is mobile-savvy and cares about how today’s users are receiving content. This will include optimizing layouts, testing how content appears on mobile screens, and fixing issues that may be slowing your speed. Google also provides tools like the Mobile-Friendly Test to help with this optimization process.
There are so many ways you can perform maintenance on your site to keep it quick and mobile-friendly while continuously optimizing your SEO results. From compressing images to implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), you can shift the user’s experience of your content without adding anything new.
Maximize Your Website’s Potential with Effective SEO Results
In this dynamic environment, it’s crucial to recognize that SEO isn’t solely about churning out new content. It’s a multifaceted tool that encompasses a deep understanding of your website, strategic content optimization, and the overall enhancement of website performance.
By embracing these strategies and recognizing the potential within their existing website structures, businesses can not only meet the challenges of the past year but also thrive in the constantly shifting digital landscape for years to come.
The “Year of SEO” is not just a trend; it’s a reminder that SEO’s true power lies in unlocking the full potential of your online presence, both in the present and the future. So, seize the opportunity and let SEO be your guiding star in 2024.
