SEO tips come fast and furious when big algorithm changes happen. This past year has seen a lot of major changes. From Panda and its updates to Penguin and its updates to the Exact Match Domain weight-change, 2012 has seen massive sea changes. As a result, there are a plethora of advice for SEO practices going into the new year. And 2013 promises to have a new set of changes in how search engine optimization will work.
We’ve decided to simplify things a bit. So, we’ve taken a serious look at a compilation of the latest SEO tips and boiled them down into one message. The truth is, you don’t need to wade through dozens or scores of SEO tips and tricks to be in-the-know. But what one can surmise when taking into account the top SEO tips of this year is there’s a single over-arching theme.
With this in mind, we’ve taken the best SEO tips out there and boiled the top 10 SEO tips by industry leaders down into one message. And that message is: diversify.
Optimization in 2013
Whether you know or don’t know anything about Google’s big 2012 updates named Panda, Penguin and EMD, there’s a clear point Big G is getting across in no subtle way. The search giant is telling websites to produce great content and optimize for humans, not robots. That being said, there are certain elements which have not changed. While keyword density has been down-weighted to the point it’s either useless or harmful, other facets of traditional optimization remain important ranking factors.
Social signals have been given a large boost by Bing and Google. Essentially, SEO is adapting to several changes that have long been in the works. And that means taking a more diversified approach to SEO.
SEO Tip: Diversify
Diversification is a very common term in money management and financial planning. Be it Certified Financial Planners, Certified Public Accountants, tax attorneys or a stock broker, the concept of diversification is the quintessential principle in the world of money.
SEO is no different, particularly going into 2013. The various algorithmic updates over the course of this year can’t mean anything else. The sole job of a search engine is to return the most relevant, most informative, most authoritative information available. And to achieve high organic ranking, sites need to fill those needs.
Here’s how diversification should be addressed going into next year and well beyond:
- Change-up anchor text. While this might not be a new concept, it’s one that many people just ignore. After all, if your website sells designer handbags, it’s only natural to use “designer handbags” as anchor text. But repeatedly producing anchor text like, “best designer handbags”, “cheap designer handbags”, and “celebrity designer handbags”, is just like producing anchor text like “spammity spam spams”.
- Vary your links. It’s just as easy to get caught in the same trap as repeating the same anchor text. Links should be built naturally, not on steroids. The best link building campaigns are done thoughtfully and use high quality sites and Web 2.0 properties in the way they’re intended. Link building is evolving into link earning, so quality trumps quantity anytime.
- Employ different traffic sources. Every website owner wants to be at the top of Google’s organic results on page 1. But the fact of the matter is, things change. While Google may be the dominate search engine, it isn’t the only one. It’s important to think outside of the box and build sources of traffic other than Big G.
If you’d like to know more about how to diversify your SEO efforts, then contact us. We’ll be happy to speak with you about how to improve your site’s performance and increase its conversion rate.
About CQuinnDesign
Owner of CQuinnDesign, LLC - Provides professional website design and development. Also enjoys search engine optimization and getting clients websites to the top of search engines. I love SEO, Web Design, WordPress, Twitter, FaceBook and pretty much anything related to programming and development.
Thank you for helpful articles, the one about diversification especially is really interesting..Thanks.
Web design is more about strategy than it is about having flashy graphics or catchy phrases. The most important aspect of web design is understanding what the website needs to accomplish and how to get it there. It is easy to find artists and writers to create content for a website. It is more critical to know what to get out of those individuals.
Very Useful article. I must appreciate it. This will help a lot webmasters to improve their SEO performance. Thanks.
Can you please elaborate a little about changing up anchor text? Like you said, if I have a designer bag website, I will logically use designer bag in the anchor text and not “Mercedes Benz” or “local painters.” How do I change up anchor text?
Good Question – what is meant by that statement is to use anchor text that is actually being searched for by website users. We typically use a website called Keyword Tool and compile a list of keywords we want to use for an article or content that we are writing.
For instance – If one of our clients is a plumbing company, then we will first come up with a Title for the content we are writing. Next we do research on that title using KeywordSpy in order to find keywords related to that title. Once we have a list of 7-15 keywords we can then start writing the content utilizing those keywords for anchor text to either internal pages/posts on the clients website or external resources related to the clients business.
In other words, we have seen many times a writer will use anchor text that has very little SEO value. It is important to research keywords before you start writing in order to maximize your SEO efforts. You may have good anchor text already, but for high competition keywords – which is another factor to consider.