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Red Hot SEO Tips for Generating Unstoppable Website Traffic

Published: July 2, 2015

The problem with SEO is that Google updates its ranking algorithm so frequently – up to 600 times a year – that marketers are having a hard time staying current with which SEO techniques are still allowed and which will get their sites slapped with a ranking penalty or even banned from the search engine results altogether.

The Most Effective SEO Strategies for 2015 and Beyond

While Google’s constantly evolving ranking algorithm has drastically reduced the number of traffic-boosting strategies in the SEO toolbox, there are still a number of evergreen techniques around, some of them little-known to the general marketing community, that are both highly effective and Google-friendly. Here’s a look at some of the hottest traffic-generating SEO techniques that you really need to consider implementing on your website.

1. Mobile optimize your website. This is a biggie, and ignoring it is going to cost you a ton of search engine traffic. According to no less an authority than Google itself, mobile search volume is now greater than desktop search. Google feels so strongly about providing a good experience for the mobile search user that they are starting to drop non mobile-friendly websites from the mobile search results. If you haven’t already made the move to a mobile-friendly site, make it your first priority – 50 percent or more of your search traffic is at stake. In short, your site needs to be able to resize itself to display well regardless of which type of mobile device it’s being viewed on. You can check your current website for mobile-friendliness with Google’s free mobile test tool at the Google Webmaster Tools page.

2. Don’t ignore long-tail keywords. These are keyword phases containing 2 or more keywords that are more closely aligned with how people search. Shorter keywords like “Chinese food” typically have a high search volume and are thus more difficult to rank for. Long tails like “Chinese food takeout in downtown Denver” won’t deliver as many searches, but will usually provide more targeted prospects and be much easier to rank for.

3. Create your own keywords. Whenever you create an original product, process, or system be sure to give it a unique name and start optimizing for it just as would for any other keyword. You’ll always rank number one for a term that you invent, and as its popularity grows so will your traffic referrals.

4. Create longer blog posts and articles. Web pages ranking in the top ten of the search results typically run 2,000 words or more. Longer posts provide proof that you’re publishing in-depth, high value content – which the search engines love to see. What’s more, readers recognize the added value of longer content and are 30 percent more likely to share it than shorter posts, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Jonah Berger.

5. Link out to high-quality authority sites. Google’s Hilltop algorithm update (circa 2003) rewards web pages that are considered to be “information hubs.” An information hub is simply a page that links out to recognized authority sites. By linking out to least three relevant authority sites in every post and article that you publish, you’ll help establish your site as a source of quality information that deserves higher search page ranking.

6. Send some internal link juice to your web pages stalled on page 2 or 3. If you have pages sitting on the second or third page of Google’s search results, you might be able to push them to page 1 with a little bit of creative internal linking.

Go to your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard and access “Search Analytics.” Look in the “Position” column for any of your keywords that have an average position of 11-20 in the search results.

Sign up for ahrefs’ free “Newbie” plan, enter your homepage URL and click “Top Pages” in the right-hand sidebar. This will bring you to a list of the most authoritative pages on your website. Add some internal links to each of those high authority pages, then add internal links from those pages to the pages stalled on page 2 or 3 of the search results that you want to give a boost of linking juice to.

Not only is SEO important for overall visibility and branding, it helps to bring in business leads, it provides credibility and most importantly, it gives offers direct insight into the needs and wants of customers and website visitors. What sets search engine optimization apart from different kinds of marketing is that it’s both non-intrusive, meaning it’s not interruptive, and it’s voluntary, meaning that it’s a result of user-generated behavior. Implementing SEO into your internet marketing strategy is a definite way to maximize your business efforts.

 

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