Published on January 29th, 2020 | by Sunit Nandi

Top 5 SEO Best Practices for 2020

Are you looking to get your website ranked higher on the search engines this year? If yes, then you need a checklist –or a cheat sheet if you will- that will guide you. There’s a ton of advice out there about search engine optimization. Many of them are pure crap, and can even hurt your website’s rankings. Unfortunately, because most people don’t know any better, they accept and put the information to work, only to find that they’re not getting any results. In this article, we’ll show you the best SEO practices that are relevant today and have been proven to work. These are constantly used by top-ranking websites to secure multiple top positions for their target keywords. Ready? Let’s get started.

Publish Epic Content

At the heart of every successful SEO campaign is content. And we’re not talking about the fluff-filled, no-value drivel that you often find online. We’re talking great, epic actionable content that actually adds value.
The goal of every content you publish on your website should be to provide maximum value. This is why the Skyscraper and Authority Hacking methods are amazing. This basically involves finding the best content on the subject and improving on it. So, if the best content had 10 ideas, your content will have at least 15 ideas that work. These can also include everything from infographics to graphs, and videos. The idea is to become the best resource available on that subject matter. Once you master the art of creating such powerful, industry-leading content, you’ll automatically become the most quoted/cited resource. If you haven’t been doing well with your SEO campaigns, creating a ton of highly informative, actionable content will put you on a fast track to success.

Master Keyword Research

What keywords are you targeting? Are your keywords relevant? In fact, good keywords are the foundation of successful SEO campaigns. If you aren’t targeting the right keywords, chances are your campaign will flop. This is why you need to start your campaign with the right keywords. Assess the competition for the keyword. If you’re starting out in a tough niche, start focusing on long-tail keywords. The longer and more specific, the better. In fact, research has shown that long-tail keywords are better targeted, and have higher conversion rates. This is because searchers are usually further along in their buying stage when they search for these keywords. So, focus on these keyword goldmines. There are a ton of keyword research tools –apart from Google Keyword Planner- that can help you dig up a ton of highly targeted, low volume/low competition keywords.

Use Effective On-Page Optimization Techniques

Next on your list of things to do is optimizing your website for target keywords and increased ranking. Experts agree that on-page optimization alone influences your rankings by at least 40 percent. In fact, sometimes, all you need to get on the first 2 pages are just your on-page optimization. But you’ve got to know how it’s done. Start with your title tags. Target only one keyword per page. Insert that in the title tag, within the first 30 words on that page, in the middle (H3 tags are great), and in the last paragraph. But most of all, front-load your keyword. It is imperative that it shows up in the title. This is the most important element of on-page optimization.

Syndicate Your Content

It’s not enough to just write excellent content. The search engines have to pick them up first. This is known as indexing. These days, indexing takes a lot longer than it used to take. Unless you use a SEO Web Crawler Tool to accelerate the indexing process. This attracts the search engine bots to your posts, notifying them as quickly as possible to come “pick up your content and include it in the search engines”. Syndicating or indexing your content helps them rank faster. Get the content out to as many outlets as possible. This way, Google and other search engines will pick them up quickly. You can also add these links to popular social media sites like Twitter, and Facebook. These two sites are indexed in Google, and their bots routinely crawl these sites for new updates.

Build High Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are “votes” showing that your website is a good resource for certain keywords. The more votes you have from high-value websites, the higher your chances of getting ranked higher. The thing is most popular and leading websites won’t link to you if you’re not publishing great content. This is why tip #1 is vital. The best way to build backlinks is by earning them. But, while you wait for your content to gain traction and start attracting these “votes”, you can deploy tactics like guest posting outreach –which basically means you asking to write for other websites, in exchange for links to your site. Other proven tactics include the use of PBNs, Google stacks, and press releases to mention a few. Speaking of links, use internal linking to your advantage. Interlink all related pages on your site. This does amazing things for your rankings.

Of course, it’s not enough to find random backlinks, as Google will punish you if numerous spam or low-quality sites link to your pages. That’s because Google knows that people try to cheat the system, buying backlinks in an attempt to improve the authority of their domain artificially. So, if you want to know how to get high quality backlinks, the answer is to hire a professional company to get them for you. In doing so, you’ll eliminate the guesswork from the process, and as long as you choose a provider with a long history in the industry, you can trust that all of the sites linking to you will be reputable.

Tags: 2020, practices, top

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.