10 SEO Shortcuts for 2021 – Fix These and Improve Your Results in Record Time!

Avoid These Top 10 SEO Mistakes AND Use These SEO Shortcuts To Gain an Edge Over Your Competitors

Security will continue to be a top priority in 2020. Stories in the media about data breaches at companies such as Sony, Facebook, and Equifax have caused online consumers to become more vigilant about their personal data. Google has also moved towards making security a priority . They have begun prioritizing websites that are secure and have an SSL certificate. Getting an SSL is not expensive; in fact, some hosting services offer it for free. However, it’s worth getting one and installing it on your site. An SSL certificate will make your site HTTPS secure, which is a huge ranking factor for Google. As a result, Google is labelling websites that are not secure and have an HTTP connection instead of HTTPS with a "Site Not Secure" warning.

2. Not Having the Proper Amount of Content and Ignoring Internal Linking To Other Cornerstone Content

3. Not Optimizing for Local Search aka GMB Optimization

Local SEO requires a whole new game plan as its main focus is on GMB Optimization and improving Local Rankings. If you want to grow your business, you need to improve and increase your website traffic by optimizing your site for local searches. Start by choosing the right keywords with local intent and creating quality content that will benefit your viewership.

For example, as an SEO Company in Calgary, one of our keywords to rank high for is “ Calgary SEO,” and SEO Company in Calgary. Similarly, if you were one of the reputable “Calgary landscapers,” then your keywords to target might be “ Landscaping Calgary,” or “Landscape design Calgary,” or “landscaping companies Calgary.” These keywords have local intent and have good monthly demand. Thus, ranking on the first page of Google for these high-demand keywords with good local intent will give a massive boost to your website traffic, which will ultimately increase your revenue and your bottom line.

It’s essential to have the name of your local city, your street address, your phone number, and the name of your business displayed clearly throughout your website. You should set up a Google My Business account with the same information as well. Finally, set up profiles on directories such as Yelp and any popular local directories and link them to your site.

Getting backlinks from high-quality sites will boost your SEO value. It will show Google that your content is valuable and that people trust you as a reliable source of information. However, content creation is one of the most tricky and challenging parts of SEO. We all have heard about blogging and content creation of content marketing. But, very few understand the real value of content and how it impacts website traffic.

Most people start creating content without thinking about it strategically or proper research. You must understand this..., if your content isn’t link-worthy, you won’t get any links. Focus on creating informative content that others can point to as a source. For example, you may want to create infographics or data charts that others can link to so that their website visitors would find your content valuable. According to Search Engine Journal, link-worthy content is a carefully researched and thought out piece of literature that has four aspects: It is informational, inspirational, educational, and entertaining. 

According to Forbes, the digital video marketing industry in the USA alone is worth $135 billion. 76% percent of businesses that used videos reported seeing an increase in traffic. 

Videos are rising in popularity at a fast pace. As a result, more and more people are watching videos. These videos are engaging in nature, entertaining, educational, informative, and how-to videos. In 2020, watching videos will account for 78 percent of the world's mobile traffic! 

The reality is that videos, images and other forms of visual content, are crucial for SEO. Google values informative content, and videos are some of the best ways to convey information. So, using more videos in your blog posts and on your site will help boost your rankings. 

Another commonly ignored SEO element is On-site Optimization, aka On-page Optimization - i.e. not maximizing the use and benefit of Meta Tags . Optimizing your title tags and Meta descriptions should be part of every SEO strategy, as they help Google understand what your content is all about.

Fortunately, this is not difficult to do. There are many free plugins, such as the Rank Math SEO and the Yoast-SEO plugin, which will let you quickly change the metadata of your posts. Ensure to include your most important keywords in both the title tags and the Meta descriptions on your site. 

As mentioned earlier, it’s vital to have link-worthy content. If you think that just by creating content, you will get backlinks, you are mistaken. You will be lucky if you even get a single backlink. To get backlinks, you need to work for it or set up a carefully planned link-building campaign.

There are many link-building strategies that you can use to obtain high-quality backlinks. One of the best ways is reaching out to bloggers who are doing link roundups or are creating curated blogs and ask them to include you; after all, you have already created link-worthy content. Another method is reaching out to blogs that have links posted to expired websites and suggesting that they link to your informative blog post instead. Again, any SEO firms can help you with this. 

SEO Experts warn that although guest posting is one of the best ways to obtain high-quality backlinks, you must investigate the site you are writing for first. You can’t just pick any website and write for it. Researching and studying sites to find the non-spammy ones does take a lot more work, but it is worth the effort. After all, getting a single link from a good website with a high Domain Authority score will help your SEO way more than getting 100 links from poor sites with low DA scores.

If the site is spammy, has too many outbound links, doesn’t offer a lot of high-quality content, or is otherwise a low-value site, getting a link from there can actually damage your site. The website should be relevant and also cover similar topics to yours. It is essential to seek a guest post from a website that writes content aligned with your brand or is in the same industry category. Contact a digital marketing consultant or an SEO consultant if you are unsure. 

Although SEO will help drive free organic traffic to your site, you can’t just post some blog posts, sit back, and expect tons of traffic to your website to roll in. Instead, you must actively and intentionally promote your content.

The easiest way is to start with Social media. You can share your post on Facebook , Twitter , Google My Business , and other social networks. Not only will you drive traffic to your website from social media, but regularly posting and getting more social shares will also help boost your SEO rankings .

Another fantastic but usually ignored way to promote your content is through Email marketing. Sending emails to those who have raised hands to receive information from you and your brand is the easiest way to extend traffic to your website. Adding “Send to a Friend” or “Tweet This” or “Share on Facebook” on your email newsletter content will get others to promote your content.

As mentioned earlier, if you have helpful and valuable content, you should also source for link roundup opportunities, which will help you boost your rankings by getting you well-deserved backlinks for your hard work. 

Page Speed is a big one. Since most people are using handheld devices and smartphones, people have a short attention span online, and they will leave your website if it fails to load quickly , thus increasing your bounce rate, which may lower your rankings. Besides, Google takes page speed into account in their ranking algorithms.

There are definite steps you can take to speed up your site. One way is to switch to a better hosting provider or a better hosting plan . Changing to an optimized and lighter theme and deleting unnecessary plugins can also help. Try minimizing the file sizes of the images and other multimedia media content you use as well. Adding a caching plugin on your responsive WordPress website can improve website speed performance as well.

Google has even provided a page speed insight tool for web developers.

Your website rankings and site traffic will improve by avoiding these 10 mistakes mentioned above. But, of course, every business and website will be different, and you may have specific ways you can personally improve your site for better search engine rankings. 

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