If you know a little about SEO and how the internet works, you know that it is essential to constantly question your practices, especially regarding best practices that evolve every year. The digital world has a characteristic that defines it: it constantly evolves.
Everything changes, whether by the goodwill of Google’s algorithms or based on user preferences. This is why it is essential to always keep an eye on the latest trends, whether they are technical or purely subjective.
Everyone is searching for the best content optimization practices for SEO to change their lives, but most of them are not willing to implement the most important practices.
There is a lot of excellent content on Google that is invisible and buried (on the 2nd page). This leads to so many great businesses missing out on so much potential.
On the other hand, getting to the top of search results is no child’s play. Marketers must be smart and creative to stay competitive.
This blog post will provide you with the SEO best practices for content optimization to help you attract the attention of users and search engines.
Properly structure your site
The first good practice concerns the overall organization of your site. The days when a single homepage was enough to attract crowds are long gone! Today, it is a matter of developing a site with many pages, but above all according to a clearly defined hierarchy.
The structure of a site is what is called the hierarchy. And currently, Google appreciates well-defined hierarchies. It likes homepages that lead to subcategories, which are themselves linked to sub-subcategories even more.
It is thus a matter of creating a main page, which leads to daughter pages, which themselves guide the user to grandchild pages. Each group of pages deals with the same subject, in a logical organization.
What Google appreciates in well-structured hierarchies is that it is easy for a user to follow the site’s thread. They can easily find their way around and search for the information they need.
Think about being mobile friendly
From an even more technical point of view, current websites must be adapted to display on all screens. Whether you create your site or go through a digital agency, your website must be able to display on all devices.
The statistics speak for themselves: 48% of internet purchases are made on mobile devices. Information that, as you can imagine, Google has taken into account. And which greatly tips the balance in the race for positioning in SERPs.
Focus on loading speed
To close the technical dimension of best SEO practices, do not neglect the loading time of your site! Since 2009, search engines have advocated for page loading speed as a positioning criterion for search results.
And it’s not for nothing: after just a few seconds, if the page does not display, users tend to get impatient. And consider that the site is not up to their expectations. They inevitably turn to your competitors.
Focus your keywords on search intent
To return to a concept that concerns web writing more, what is your policy in keyword research? Because on this side too, Google has changed the game.
Of course, the best choice is still a popular, low-competition main keyword. But today, the importance of search intent should not be overlooked. Your keyword should thus correspond to what users are looking for, in both content and form.
So, don’t hesitate to research to target the search intent you need: informational or transactional content.
Write comprehensive and impactful content
Regarding the content you write, length has always had a fairly significant impact on article positioning. Blog articles that are long enough (1,200 words) have always had a head start over shorter articles.
Simply because from Google’s point of view, length often indicates that information is abundant. This leads to the satisfaction of users in search of answers.
But what also matters today is not only the quality of the information you provide. It’s also the length of your sentences: long sentences have a significant impact on the user’s attention, who can quickly get bored and head to another site.
Update your optimized content
Once you’ve published your articles and content, the work isn’t done: plan on spending some time regularly updating them. Check what your competitors are doing, do better, and adjust your keywords if necessary.
In addition to refreshing your information, regular updates show Google that you are maintaining your website, which is very positive for your organic ranking.
Don’t forget to check your website data:
1)Traffic growth
2)Trust Flow
3)Your position in search results
4)Your average CTR (click-through rate)
5)The keywords
Adapt to voice search
It’s now undeniable: voice search is increasingly popular with Google algorithms. To the extent that there are now a set of SEO rules to follow to meet Google Bot requirements. Indeed, more and more users around the world are using voice search.
Whether it’s with an iPhone, an Android, or a tablet, users no longer bother to type: they ask directly. However, the verbal formulation is often different from written formulation, which completely modifies the key queries to which your content must correspond.
So be sure to write content that is comprehensive but composed of short sentences.
For example: to inform a user who is wondering about the telephone code for a Canadian number, one of the sentences in your content should be “The Canadian telephone code is +1”. Simple, concise, and containing the key information sought.
Create a net linking strategy
You’ve probably heard of net linking and the fact that it’s one of the pillars of a site’s SEO. This statement is still true: never neglect the importance of backlinks!
Develop a real long-term strategy and create partnerships for frequent link referrals. If links pointing to your site, Google will immediately consider that your site is worth sharing. Therefore, it contains interesting information that deserves to be read.
Continuing with the idea of interesting writing, you can rely on link bait. A practice of organic search engine optimization that involves dealing with popular and rarely treated subjects, but is always based on reliable references and sources.
For example, “Heavy metal helps you fall asleep and relax.”
You can probably find clues that corroborate your assertion, and, likely, this article does not already exist in thousands of copies.
Do not neglect semantic markup
An extremely important tip for your natural referencing: is semantic markup. From the Title to the meta description to the H1-H2 tags of your articles: everything must be carefully crafted.
The main keyword must be present, as well as secondary keywords. The titles must be short, impactful, and accurately illustrate what is in the corresponding section.
Optimize Core Web Vitals for improved user experience
Google uses Core Web Vitals to assess a website’s overall user experience. These metrics consist of three specific measurements related to page speed and user interaction: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). LCP measures the time it takes for a page’s main content to load and should ideally take 2.5 seconds or less. FID measures how quickly a page becomes interactive, with an ideal time of fewer than 100 milliseconds. Finally, CLS measures the unexpected layout shift of visual content and should ideally be less than 0.1. You can easily audit your website’s Core Web Vitals using Site Audit by navigating to the “Core Web Vitals” box in your dashboard and clicking “View Details.” This will show you each page’s status for each metric, along with optimization tips.
Conclusion
Remember that everything must be designed to satisfy users!
SEO Practices are a discipline that changes completely over the months and years. That’s why it’s important to study the latest trends and stay up-to-date on SEO developments.
In 2023, don’t forget to optimize your website and web pages in the direction of user satisfaction, and update them as much as possible. These are the best methods to keep your site at the top of its game!
