SEO is often viewed as a bit of a minefield by many small brands and businesses. They don’t have the resources or budget of big brands and corporations, so they throw in the towel and assume it isn’t going to work for them. But this isn’t the case at all. SEO doesn’t need to be complicated.
If you don’t have a clue, you may well be better off hiring Hook Agency – St Paul SEO or SEO Toronto Company to get the job done, but there are still a few things you can try on your own. In this post, we are going to discuss a few actionable strategies that are guaranteed to work in 2018. Give them a go and let us know how you get on!
Use Long-Tail Key Phrases
There are 4.5 billion searches in Google each day. That’s a lot of people looking for a lot of information. You can capture some of this search traffic by targeting long-tail keywords. As we move into mobile search and voice search territory, it is becoming increasingly important to target long-tail search phrases. Simply including a few single keywords in your content won’t be enough.
Instead, create new content or optimise existing content to include targeted long-tail search phrases. This allows you to use less competitive key phrases. If you decide to try paid search marketing, it will be cheaper, which is always a bonus!
Voice Search
Voice searches are becoming more relevant as Siri and Alexa take over the world. Use Google as a starting point. Type in a search phrase and see how Google completes the sentence. This tells you what people are looking for. Try and make your long-tail search phrases natural. These will fit voice searches much better.
Try to phrase queries in the same way someone would if they were asking an actual question. Think about who, where, what, and when. When we ask Siri to find a pharmacy, we don’t say “pharmacy London”, we say “where is the nearest pharmacy in London”.
Video Content
Video content is huge, and it is set to become even bigger in 2018. YouTube is now the second biggest search engine in the world. When people need information, they are just as likely to search on YouTube as they are on Google.
Creating video content lets you join the party.
Mobile Optimised Websites
OK, so this isn’t exactly new, but it is becoming ever more important. Mobile internet use has now overtaken desktop computing and it won’t be long before your target customer is looking for your brand on their iPhone rather than on a computer.
Google penalises websites that are not mobile friendly. Don’t be one of them. Your website needs to be optimised for mobile usage. Make sure the underlying code can handle an adjustment to mobile. Using Accelerated Mobile Pages speeds up a website and helps it to perform better.
Continually monitor your SEO strategies as 2018 rolls on or you might be left behind.
