Over the years, the SEO ABCs have been changing a bit. In the past five years, usability and mobile experience in order of magnitude have become more important elements. In the past, Google or other search engines didn’t really belong much to the ranking algorithm. However, I am too much a web builder who treats these metrics as though they were the only customers and counterparts in the SEO and Web development areas.
Most importantly, content — and always will — absolutely remain the king. Although a website has a terrible design and janky user expertise, Google has stated that it can still stand first if it has much better content.
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In my expertise, the best long-term SEO strategy consists of 30-40% creation, including well-informed, detailed articles, of high-quality original content; 30% to 40% link building in as organic a way as possible; the remaining 20-30% is UX, Core Web Vitals (like CLS) bounce rate and session duration (for Google analytics sites) and all these other content remaining.
Because these other trends account for between 20 and 30% of the ranking factor, you cannot ignore them. You can make a difference when competing in highly competitive search terms that can push you to page one. This is particularly true if your competitors already match your content and links to your quality and if you have maximized your edge for those key factors.
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You don’t have to be number one when it comes to SEO. You have only to be before everybody else.
The men in “black hat”
For two primary reasons, many small businesses still have faith or default in more ‘black hat’ SEOs: speed and cost. Black-hat SEO techniques can attract small and medium-sized enterprises, as they can boost things faster than by rules. But it will go away as soon as the boost comes.
I was one of the first to find out comment spam back in 2004 when WordPress was only one year old. I have built a boot that searches the blogs on the website and links comments to the company for which I worked. For every search term, we wanted to rank for, we’ve been number one on Google in three days. That did not last long, of course, and Google caught up with it. I no longer use such black-hat techniques, but the process taught me a lot about page rank, authority, and hub sites.
6 Steps for Long-Term SEO Strategy
The correct SEO may at first appear expensive but usually results in a much lower purchase cost than pay per click, print, TV, and so on. In 2021 a host of sustainable SEO policies can be used. Here are six steps for a long-term SEO strategy, both of which are highly effective and my favorites.
1. Perform competitive analysis
Remember that your placement is related to SEO; no placement is absolutely necessary on the results pages of the search engine. You just have to analyze what your competitors do: where are the links? What sites are there? How long did the links last? You have to do it better or good.
How deep is their research on different subjects and how broad is their semantic network? What about their content? The vocabulary of your site on these issues must be somewhat wider. All SEO measures are applicable. This applies. We’ve got a saying in Montana: You don’t have to run out of your baby grizzly.
2. Start small
Go for the less competitive key phrases and then go ahead. Many tools, including Wordtracker and SEMrush, can help research on long-tail keywords search (and normal keyword research). You can use SEMrush for a long-term SEO strategy. It may seem counterintuitive, but the lock-in positioning and traffic with SEO are better for less competitive search terms (usually longer multi-word sentences, known also as “long tail”). The idea is to get users on your site quickly and roll the ball.
3. Make use of structured data
When searching for cookie recipes in Google and looking at a carousel of cookies that are available before the current search findings, those rich snippets are made from Google websites with a specific bookmark called structured data in Schema.org format. That’s how Google knows that it’s not only a cooking bubble.
Ten years ago, without these carousels or accordion elements, Google was just a list of Web results. The first Google search query page now consists mostly of snippets, carousels and accordions provided with structured data, i.e. expandable elements. It is important, in the form of JavaScript Object Notations, or JSON, to describe everything on your website — products, videos, reviews, etc. That’s how you can see more when Google knows the intention of the search engine. Just don’t abuse it, for example, by using structured information to tell Google that your products say that you have five star reviews when they don’t just show up five stars on Google next to the website.
4. Get creative
If you have developers, try to create widgets or badges linked back to your Website, which can be placed on their sites by customers, vendors or affiliates. The technique of linking can result in exponentials in the right situations. It is an excellent legitimate technique.
5. Start blogging
Unleash and create your own blog with well-inquired, in-depth blog posts—plus 2,000 words. If you run a website for e-commerce, having blog content on your website is especially useful. In order to connect other websites, it is easier to link them to a blog post than an e-commerce store; they and their users are less “spammy” Please don’t use spinning content — use software to just tweak your article to make Google think it’s a different article — or other similar hacks for creating content. These tricks don’t work well for real users, so they don’t work for SEO long term.
6. Consider guest posting
Guest posts on other blogs are another valid way to gain new visitors. The content that is linked to your website or blog can then be published. Make sure you write rich, original and authentic content and that your site is reputable. Please bear in mind that you create the contents that should be:
- Provide information that would be useful to real people. (Would strangers from their sites link to it because they thought it informative?)
- Be original. – Be original. (Is it possible to find everything on one web page?)
- Be genuine. (Are you giving both the pros and cons and being as neutral as possible on the subject matter?)
Just remember, none of these matters if, over time and relative to your competitors, you do not track your main SEO metrics. It’s essential to track.
By using the above-mentioned white-hat technologies my customers have enjoyed steady SEO growth over years without the search results that many people complain about when Google updates — and they also never receive a manual penalty. Writing professional, researched and thorough articles produced significant returns, with top websites linked to the material. The formula may change somewhat, but there is still a solid content on the road to successful SEO.
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