Making Bold SEO Moves: Practices that are (not) Worth the Risk
So, you want to refurbish your SEO strategy, but you don’t know where to start. If you’ve been investing in your online presence for quite some time now, it’s logical that you’re afraid that these changes may hurt your rankings.
Still, remember that SEO is changing fast and, to maintain the competitive edge, you need to adapt. So, you shouldn’t ask yourself whether to update your SEO strategy, but what tactics are really worth the risk.
Changing URL Structure
A well-optimized URL needs to be short, informative, and keyword-friendly. This makes it simpler for users to learn what your page content is about before clicking on the link.
When updating your URL structure, don’t make large-scale changes overnight. Apply your new optimization tactics to 10 or 20 pages to test out the waters fist. Most importantly, measure their performance to see whether their impact on your SEO efforts is positive. If everything’s all right, then you can move forward with changing your URL structure gradually. Your goal is to keep changing them until they’re all made sweet and short. You should also 301 redirect your old URLs to new ones to maintain your link value.
Building High-Quality Links
It’s 2018 and many marketers are still afraid of link building. They associate this practice with some black-hat SEO activities and Google’s penalties. Well, you need to know that link building is not about spammy backlinks. On the contrary, if implemented properly, this is one of the key SEO tactics you need to invest in.
A few years ago, Google confirmed that backlinks are one of their key ranking factors. Backlinko’s study claims the same. They concluded that the number of sites linking to a page impacts its performance in the SERPs more than any other factor. Moreover, the link authority can also make or break your online performance.
So, yes, you need to invest in link building, but you need to plan it wisely.
Focus on the quality of your link building opportunities. Pay attention to the factors like the site’s DA, relevance to your niche, online following, reader engagement, etc. This is a complex process that requires a substantial time investment when done manually. You can always speed the process up by investing in link building tools that will do the research for you and provide you with highly relevant sites.
A New Website Design
- Your site is slow and outdated.
- Your site is not responsive.
- Your site looks plain/unprofessional/spammy.
- Your site doesn’t reflect your brand values and mission.
- Your site has nothing to do with your current marketing strategy.
- Your site is not listed on Google or your listings are buried deep into the 10th page of search results.
- You feel the need to curl up in the fetal position on the floor and cry yourself out whenever you look at your conversion rates.
OK, these are just some of the numerous indicators that you need to polish up your site. And, that’s not good, given that your site is a key part of your online presence. Every SEO tactic you implement is all about guiding people to your site. And, what happens when they land on it depends on you. No one wants to waste their time on content that takes ages to load or read blog posts from 2013.
A holistic website redesign is a big call, but it is critical for your online presence. Your goal is to create a website that is perfectly optimized for both your mobile and desktop users and crawlable. It should be an online reflection of everything your brand stands for and a helpful online resource. Simple site architecture, high-quality content, a great narrative around your brand, and sleek design are just some elements that will increase your engagement rates and boost user experience.
Sure, creating a new website always comes with a risk, especially if you decide to move it to a new domain. These are tricky aspects of SEO that may hurt your branding and SEO efforts. It’s always good to prevent such problems on time. For example, when moving to the new domain, you could create a page on your new site dedicated to your old brand to help both Google and users understand that these are two sites belonging to the same brand.
Constantly Investing in User Experience
Over the past few years, SEO has moved from self-serving promotion practices to a completely different, customer-centric approach. And, this was inevitable, given that Google is constantly upgrading its algorithms to make the browsing experience smoother.
For starters, you need to constantly track your major SEO metrics. Conversion rates, bounce rates, and the average page session will clearly tell you how relevant and friendly your site is to your target audience.
User experience is a broad term and it comprises of a wide range of practices. Here a few things you could do to improve it:
- Add reviews on product pages.
- Post video content on your category pages.
- Publish explanatory content on your product pages.
- Create interactive content that brings value, like infographics, videos, podcasts, and case studies.
- Make your website highly responsive, as mentioned above. This includes every aspect of your UX design, from improving page speed to making your content easier to read and understand.
What Risks not to Take
While some SEO practices are worth the risk, there are some activities you should avoid at all costs. Here are some of them:
- Creating doorway pages, as Google doesn’t love them and tends to penalize sites using them.
- Deleting entire pages, as you will risk not ranking for these keywords anymore. Even if you don’t have a certain product or service in your offer anymore, don’t delete the URL. Instead, you should write something like “This product is not in our offer anymore. Here are similar products you may like.”
- Targeting exact-match keywords. In the world of long-tail keywords and voice search optimization, targeting only exact-match phrases can be considered a spam. You need to find more natural ways to optimize for your target phrases and make your listings more relevant.
- Removing neutral backlinks. Disavowing low-quality backlinks is a great way to keep your backlink portfolio spotless, but what to do with those links that neither boost nor harm your rankings? You should keep them. By removing them, you’re risking blocking the sites that may give your rankings a boost.
The Key to Successful Optimization Lies in Making Informed Decisions
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks,” Mark Zuckerberg. The turbulent SEO landscape is evolving at an impressive rate and you need to adapt your strategies to it. You just need to balance the risks and your profits and base your decisions on actual analytics data. Most importantly, stay away from anything that may hurt your online presence or get you penalized.
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