The Modern Rules of SEO You Must Follow

SEO has changed!

Well, you already know that. Saying “SEO is no longer what it used to be” is the most understated statement you can come across. So let me rephrase it.

Has your idea of SEO changed yet?

I mean it should, with Chrome providing continuous “Warnings to non-HTTPS websites” and, the famous “Medic Update” in August, we marketers are constantly required to adapt our SEO strategies accordingly.

Voice search, featured snippet, machine learning, etc have been the top SEO buzzwords of the past year, and they will keep being so in the upcoming years as well.

So if you think,

• Your SEO efforts are not able to move the needle!
• Or, you are getting the traffic, but they hardly convert into loyal customers!

You know something is wrong!

Fret not, I have brought for you a highly effective guide with tested SEO strategies that will make sure to bring you back in the game.

Don’t confuse this one with those basic SEO guides who fail to make a point. With so many uncertainties and speculations going around, this guide will help you with what exactly you need to do and how you should do it.

So without delaying it further, let’s get straight to the point.

Make your way towards Featured Snippets

Let’s have a look at the keyword, “Project Management tools” with monthly searches of around 50,000. Here’s how the SERP looks like for this keyword:

If you look closely, here’s what you will find above the fold.

• Three Ads
• One featured snippet
• One knowledge card

Chances are, if the user doesn’t scroll, he won’t even find you!

And that’s where the cue comes.

Featured snippets!

Do you know, more than 11.3% of search results now include Featured Snippets?

Needless to say, they steal most of the organic traffic.

Here’s how you can increase your chances of getting into the featured snippet.

1. Find out your target keywords for the target piece of content.
2. Along with this, identify Who, When, Why, What and How related queries for the content. You can do it with this amazing tool.
3. In the next step, identify your top content, content which is ranking between position #1-#10 should be your target.
4. Now check for your target keyword and see if there is any featured snippet present on the SERP.

Now you have a target query where your content/page ranks in top 10 position and a featured snippet is also there. So it’s time to add Featured Snippet code on the top of your page.

Even if there is no Featured snippet currently, you should consider adding this code to increase chances in future.

Google keeps adding new Snippets on the SERP all the time, so if your page is already optimized, you have an edge when one appears.

If there is a snippet on multiple keywords, you can add the code throughout your content or even in the bottom as FAQ section.

Create nothing less than, EXCEPTIONAL content

Whatever you are planning to write, chances are someone else has already written about it.

So please tell me, why would they like to provide a link to your content?

Do you know, 8 out of 10 people read the headlines while only 2 out of these 10 actually click on the article?

This clearly implies that either your content is not good enough or they have already read a lot of similar content.

TLDR. if you are not writing something new and awesome, it won’t work out.

Doesn’t matter if you are writing 2550 word guide or purchased a huge social share, if it is anything less than awesome, people won’t care.

So how do you craft awesome content that people want to link to? Let’s find out.

Make it in-depth

500 words blog post no longer work! To make it awesome, your content must be in-depth. Instead of publishing any half-baked content thrice a week, work on a well-researched article and publish it once a week. I am sure you will be able to see the difference.

Another thing that you need to do is give it a personalized touch. People love stories. Share your experiences, it will build trust and authority.

Google wants to show the best content for any search query. So you must invest good time and resources in crafting a content that can cover pain points of your target audience. If your content is able to give answers to users’ queries, it will surely bring results.

Add LSI Keywords

Once you have your content skeleton ready, now it is the time to add LSI keywords to it. LSI keywords have strong assistance with your content.

For example, you are working on an article about the “Keto diet”. Here are the LSI keywords you would like to focus upon:

• Weight loss
• Nutrition
• Low-carbohydrate diet
• Recipes
• Beginner

When Google finds these LSI terms into your content, he believes, “Wow! This content pretty much covers everything” and that’s exactly what you want Google to think.

If you are wondering how to find LSI keywords, here are some tricks:

• Use this free tool by LSIGraph. All that you have to do is to enter your target keyword and it will present some of the relevant LSI keywords for you to add.
  
• Another hack that you should try is Google itself. Have you ever noticed those “Searches related to…” section, you get at the end of a SERP.
  Well, the terms in Bold are LSI keywords. Isn’t that easy?
  
• Lastly, don’t forget to try Google Keyword Planner. It provides you with some of the most important LSI keywords that you need to sprinkle in your content.

Promote it across the platforms and build links

A piece of content, no matter how great, won’t yield results if people can’t find it. To give your content a good start, share it on your social media channels. Also, ensure you create some high-authority backlinks. Remember, I said HIGH AUTHORITY. Building low-quality backlinks can hurt your chances of getting traffic. Content marketing services can assist you with all of this if it seems too complex.

Be serious about the third most important ranking signal- RankBrain!

Imagine you enter the National Gallery in London and you have just 10 minutes to see your favourite artist’s painting.

What will you do?

Simple!

Ask where Titian’s paintings are, find the best paintings, and drop the anchor!

Well, that pretty much sums up the awesome experience you just had.

It goes with your website too- Good user experience is the all-time winner.

Talk about good old days and SEO was pretty much simple. You do basic on-page, create some links and you get your desired ranks.

No more!

Today, SEO has become far more complicated! Or simple?

Well, decide for yourself!

UX is now an essential part of SEO. Consider it like this: SEO focuses on attracting search engines, while UX aims to engage your website visitors. Together, they work towards the same goal: to display a web page that best answers the user’s questions.

In that light, Google has admitted RankBrain to be the third most important ranking signal out there.

Let’s understand this with an example.

Let’s say, in order to make a delicious “Regina Pizzeria”, you Google its recipe.

You click on the third link showing up in results and guess what, everything about this web page answers your query perfectly. Rankbrain will consider this web page as the most relevant page for this search query and will soon start showing up on the top.

On the other hand, now suppose, you click on the first link, your experience has been awful. Well, Rankbrain will take a note of it, and will remove it lower.

Wondering how Rankbrain notices your experience?

Based on two important factors:

1. How long people are staying at your web page – Dwell Time
2. How many people are actually clicking on your webpage – CTR (Click through rate)

To be honest, it makes sense too.

If you are staying on a web page for too long, it means probably you liked what you saw there.

Similarly, if you are clicking on any of the results, there is something in it that makes it special. (More on this in the next point)

If enough people start feeling the same, RankBrain improves its position.

User experience is ruling the whole business game nowadays.

52% of users admit that a bad mobile experience makes them less likely to engage with a company! (Impact)

Can you complain?

Actually. Here are some more numbers to make the point:

Embedded from UKWebHostReview

Hope you get the drift. User experience is not the luxury, it is a necessity. After all, in the end, it is a human that is going to make the sale so why not start on it today.

Rule the CTR Game

Click-through rate is not only important for RankBrain, but for this too.

And for this

And above all, because of this.

When search results look like any of the above, mostly just two people get benefits- Google and Searcher.

Content creators? not so much!

With Google cluttering the organic search result page with “People also ask, Ads, Carousels,” it doesn’t come up as a surprise that organic CTR is steadily going down.

Source

You must be wondering, okay, I got it that CTR is important, but how should I improve it?

• Make it long and descriptive.
• Use a catchy headline.
• Add attractive visual.
• And so on..

But hey, who has got time for that.

Let’s keep it simple.

1. The Format
2. The Emotional Hook
3. The Content-Type
4. Your Subject

Check out this amazing infographic by WordStream to get a better idea.

“Voice Search” is the next big thing

Nothing I say will emphasize enough, so let’s talk in numbers:

• The voice assistant feature by Google is now available on around 400 million devices.
• More than 50% of the searches are expected to be voice-based by 2020.
• With 48.4% users, Siri is leading the voice assistant market share.
• Alone in the USA, total voice searching userbase is around 42.7%.

The question is.

Are you doing anything about it?

If not, it won’t take much time for you to lose the race altogether.

Here are some of the steps you can take to optimize for voice search.

1. Make sure, your content is ranking good. Research has proven that Google tends to pick the voice-search answer from top-ranking content.
2. See if your content comes in Featured Snippet section. As per the research, 4 out of 10 voice search answers come from Featured Snippets.
3. Lastly, make sure to add a Question in your content as most of the voice-searches are in the form of questions. So if you have added similar data in content, it makes more sense to pick your content. This is another reason why FAQ pages work awesome for voice-search.

Having said that, the key to win at SEO is to keep updating your strategies. While some of the strategies are evergreen, it is essential to improve your way of doing them. Are you trying any of these strategies currently? Do share your experiences with me through the comment section below.