If you are a business owner, you probably know how important SEO is for your business. For those who don’t, SEO is short for “search engine optimization,” the process by which Internet marketers and SEO experts rank a web page in Google search results for keywords relevant to the business and user query.
If you’re still struggling with SEO in 2020, then you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we will introduce you to some simple and effective ways to improve your website’s organic search ranking.
Remember that SEO is a time-consuming process and therefore you should not expect results overnight. However, if you consistently adhere to these proven white hat SEO tactics, you will see a visible improvement in your website’s SEO score.
Use rich snippets to get more clicks
Rich snippets are additional blocks of information that appear alongside Google search results. Common types of rich snippets include recipes, reviews, and events. Rich snippets are known to improve organic click-through rates by more than 50%. It makes sense to focus on this feature in 2020. To display rich snippets in search results, Google retrieves structured data from your website. Many websites use Schema.org markup to implement structured data.
Secure your website with HTTPS
Google prioritizes search results from websites using the HTTPS protocol. Therefore, switching from HTTP to HTTPS in 2020 makes sense for many reasons. Plus, your users are more likely to trust and interact with secure websites. This gives you even more reasons to follow this change as soon as possible.
Focus on producing your best content
Even though many SEO trends come and go, content is still the undisputed king when it comes to improving your SEO in 2020. That’s why we encourage you to create the best possible content for your website or blog. High-quality and useful content engages readers and keeps them on your website longer, which is another positive SEO signal.
Improve your website loading time
Reducing the loading time of your web pages leads to an improved user experience and ultimately benefits your website’s organic search engine ranking. A one second delay in website loading time can result in a huge loss for your business.
Find out the factors that are slowing down your website and fix them regularly. For example, you may need to compress images, enable browser caching, and/or reduce plugins.
Link to your older posts
Google takes into account the number of internal and external links to a post when determining its ranking. Therefore, it makes sense to link to your older posts to increase your website’s organic traffic.
Use long-tail keywords
It’s important to use a mix of long-tail keywords to drive high-quality, targeted traffic to your website. With SEO becoming more competitive in 2020, using long-tail keywords like this makes even more sense today than ever before.
Claim your Google My Business listing
If you have a physical address, you can claim that address as your Google My Business listing on Google Maps. It may take a few weeks for Google to confirm your business address. Once verified, you will appear on Google Maps when someone searches near you.
You can also set up a simple, easy-to-use website for your Google My Business (GMB) listing through the GMB portal if you don’t have the budget to build a full-scale professional website.
If your business has a presence in cities other than your capital city, you should claim your GMB Maps listings for those locations as well.
Backlinks are still relevant
Like content, backlinks are still an important ranking factor. Try to build quality backlinks to your website from high authority websites. You can do this by guest blogging and/or commenting in the forum. Keep in mind that in 2020, many forums are now “no-follow,” meaning they do not share link juice. Some sites charge a fee for guest post submissions, but it still makes sense to invest in this option, especially if (1) the site has authority, (2) the site is related to your niche, and (3) you get a “do-follow” backlink from it.
Are you struggling to rank your website on the first page of Google? Reach First is here to help! With more than a decade of experience serving businesses in Edmonton and neighboring cities throughout the province of Alberta, Reach First is one of the leading providers of digital marketing services. We offer a full range of online marketing services in Edmonton, Calgary and other cities across Alberta. Additional services we offer include: SEM (Social Engine Marketing), SMM (Social Media Marketing) and comprehensive website development including graphics and branding. Contact us today for more information.