How to Adapt to Four Major Changes to the SEO Landscape
The rules of search engine optimization have changed dramatically in the last few years. Google responded to the glut of low-quality content with Panda and Penguin, algorithm updates that placed an emphasis on quality content and organic search engine optimization rather than keyword-stuffed articles and manipulating site code.
The most important thing to think about when creating an SEO strategy for your website is the visitor experience. This wasn’t always the case; until recently, Google wasn’t concerned about the user experience when determining site rankings. This has changed, as Google is smarter about reviewing sites in a way that mimics how users interact with the site. In short, the best way to improve your link popularity is to have a website that provides useful content and information to visitors.
Adapting to the new SEO landscape means rethinking old tactics that were considered to be the industry standard just a few years ago. Here are four examples of how SEO strategies have shifted recently:
Build Blog Relationships Instead of Buying Links
While Google still places a high value on having your site linked on other sites, the concept of “buying” a high volume of low quality links via a link network is no longer considered to be a good SEO strategy. In fact, if done incorrectly, you might get punished by Google for this. Instead, you should focus on doing outreach to blogs that are a natural fit for your site. Reach out to them and try to enter into a mutual relationship where you provide their readers with interesting content in exchange for links.
Focus on the On-Screen Design of Your Website
It’s still important to have a website that has a common sense architecture and that has a solid internal structure. But it’s now just as important to have a site that looks great and has content that flows naturally. Google’s spiders can read sites to analyze where and how content is displayed and you need to have a website design that takes advantage of this.
Expand Beyond a Limited Set of Keywords
Until recently, the prevailing method that search engine optimization consulting services used to increase a site’s page ranking was to focus on a limited amount of keywords and use them in the page content, title tags and header tags. Google is now smarter about how it evaluates keywords for rankings. It’s better to come up with keyword groups of related words and use them organically in your on-site content.
Concentrate on Branding
Google frowns on paying for anchor links on unrelated sites. Instead, it wants to see your company’s brand have strength. If this occurs, the power of your brand will give an extra boost to your related page rankings.
