What Are the Best Practices in SEO?
We present to you the SEO best practices for 2020. SEO means optimizing the web page for the search engines so that you rank well and more traffic is generated. More traffic means more customers, more customers leads to more sales and revenue is increased. For that, you need to perform the best SEO practices.
There are many techniques and resources stated by the king of the search engine, Google. But before we go to all the things that google states, we must fulfill the basic steps so that we can progress.
Once you have built foundation, you can go for advanced techniques.
Here is the list of seo practices that most of the SEO Agencies and SEO Experts recommend.Find the complete guide below:
1.High-quality content
Google have always focus on high quality content and describes “Content is King”. Relevancy is the key to success in Search Engines. If you are writing a content that is irrelavent of the topic then search engine will never rank your content even if you have good backlinks and authority.
Content must be written for the users not bots. There is a popular saying,” Google love you only when everyone else loves you”.
Google’s Panda update mainly focus on high quality content that is relevant and unique and of good length.
For high-quality content, you should hire the best content writer. This is where the Best SEO Company in Nepal can help you out. Relevant and high-quality content will also help in increasing the authority of the site. the content produced must be engaging and shareworthy. Your content must give the answer to each possible question.
Best Practice
- Create a content that is relevant for the selected keyword
- Cretae long form content. lengthy content means user is going to spend more time on your page and this will be awarded by search engines.
- Maintain good keyword density on you content. Don’t abuse it.
- Include a proper interlinking so that users can navigate to the proper page.
- Create unique content for each platforms. Never do Copy Paste job.
- Make your content easy to read. write your content in such a way that a secondary level child also understand it. you are not writing a novel in your website.
- Paragraphs should be roughly three sentences long. long sentences will lose the users’ attention. Each paragraph must motivate the users to read another paragraph.
2.Title tag Optimisation
After you get a proper keyword with high search volume and low competition, the most important thing is your title tag optimization. The title tags must say what exactly the page is about. It must content the Keyword or keyword phrase. Each page in your website must have unique page title.
Search results shows the title of your webpage at the very beginning. So search experience of user begins with title tag. Optimized Title tags leads to increase in visibility and CTR – click through rate.
Google has even said that: “it’s important to use high-quality titles on your web pages.”.
Best Practice
- Front-load Your Main Keyword: Start your title tag with your target keyword.
- Use One Keyword Per Title: Google has been really clear on this.
- Write Compelling, Shareable Titles: Your title tags should make people want to click on your page to learn more.
- Your title tag should be written like this: Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
- Stop use of stop words.
- Keep the title tag under 60 characters.
3.Meta description
Meta description is a summery of the webpage that appears in search engines.
Meta description is not actually the ranking factor of google, but compeling and eye catching description help user to click the page. 2nd position serp result may get more click than first position.
In September 2009, google announced that neither meta keyword nor meta descriptions to be the ranking factor.
If meta description is not the ranking factor why should you focus on it?
Meta description impact in CTR – click through rate which sends google the positive signal to rank.here are some reasons for your question
- increase CTR of your page
- Bolded keywords in Search Result
- Social bookmarking sites use it
- top social media sites use it
What the Top SEO Blogs Say About Meta Descriptions
Even if google suggest meta description is not ranking factor many top seo experts practice use of it. In the Learn SEO series, According to Moz…
“Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages (SERPs). These short paragraphs are webmasters opportunity to advertise content to searchers and let them know exactly what the given page has with regard to what they’re looking for.”
And in 21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques, According to Search Engine Land ..
“The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing.”
Best Practice
- use power words and Write compelling ad copy
- Avoid duplicate meta description tags
- Don’t include double quotation marks
- Sometimes it’s okay to not write meta descriptions
- 150 to 160 characters is the recommended length
4.URL
Another most important factor in ranking is URL. Many people ignore it, but optimizing the url structure of your site can help you outrank your competitor.
Best Practice
- use keywords in url
- make it relevent
- use short and descriptive url
- remove stop words
5. Heading tags
Heading tag summerize what the content s about. H1 tag is a subject line to the web page.
Best Practice
- include your keyword at least once
- use h1 tag only once in a page
- use multiple h2 tags for the subheading of h1 tag
- use multiple h3 tags for subheading of h2 tag
6. Internal links
The link from one page in the same website to another page is called internal link.Internal link helps user and crawlers to navigate from one age to another passing the link juice. The more the link has either internal or external higher is the chance of ranking.
Best Practice
- Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text
- Use exact match anchor text if possible to link the related page. For example: “We offer a wide range of SEO services in Nepal,” rather than “Click here for our services.”
- if possible avoid naked URL.
- Don’t Spam in name of linking.
7.Use Https
Would you visit a website that show not secure? definitely not. If you don’t visit the website without https how would you expect your visitors to visit your website?
HTTPS makes the pages on your site more secure by encrypting information sent between the visitor and server. It’s been a Google ranking factor since 2014.
Best Practice
- Use SSL
8.Optimize your page loading speed
Nobody like Slow site that does not load fast. Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.
Pagespeed has been a ranking factor for desktop since 2010 and for mobile since 2018. you can check your website using the google page insight tool and gtmetrix.
Many factors affect the site loading speed including server, code, server location, requests, server response, images, iframes etc. Ask a Technical SEO expert to fix your problem quickly.
check the page insight for our website
Best Practice
- Use a good hosting provider. Don’t run for a cheap one. Choose any of the best hosting services.
- Minimize HTTP requests
- Minify and combine files
- Use asynchronous loading for CSS and JavaScript files
- Defer JavaScript loading
- Minimize time to first byte
- Enable browser caching
- Use a CDN
- Prioritize above-the-fold content (lazy loading)
- Reduce the number of plugins you use on your site
- If you are using WordPress use optimized theme
9.Optimize your Image
Only compressing the image does not mean that you have optimized your image. Alt tags and descriptive file name are another optimizing factors.
alt tag is important for both google, users and screen reader. When image cannot run due to different problem alt tag is displayed in the screen.
Best Practice
- compress your image
- use webp image if possible
- use descriptive file name separated with hyphen
- use descriptive alt tag separated by space
Conclusion
SEO is changing day by day but practice the SEO that will last forever. Optimize your website and content for humans, not for robots. Use the keywords that are trending and value the user. so perform the keyword research properly, analyze the search results properly and match the search intent. If you are marketing your blog posts do proper keyword research for your search queries. I personally suggest you go through Semrush free plan for keyword research. Make your site fast and mobile-friendly as google states user interface and user experience -UI/UX is the ranking factor.
