From February to April 2023, Google received in excess of 8.5 billion searches a day.
With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to current SEO best practices.
This means that mastering the art of (SEO) continues to be essential for businesses and individuals who are seeking online visibility in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Backlinko found that, on average, the first result in the search results has a click-through-rate (CTR) of 27.6% compared to 15.8% if you’re in the second position, 11% if you rank third, and 2.4% if you are in the 10th position.
That speaks volumes, right?
Here are 12 best practices for SEO that you should implement today.
1. Pick keywords with search potential
It’s essential to Choose Keywords that have sufficient search potential.
The golden rule is to identify low-hanging fruit: keywords and phrases with high search volume and low competition.
Going after this can help your content reach a broader audience and rank better in the rankings.
Use a tool like Surfer’s free Chrome extension to find search volume data in your browser.
There’s also the other side of the coin.
Going after highly competitive keywords isn’t easy because you are competing against big brands.
It’s not impossible to rank those terms, but it’s not the easiest and there may be better opportunities to target your ideal audience.
You want to identify the right keywords that best represent your services and products and that you can create authoritative content around.
You want to identify the right keywords that best represent your services and products and that you can create authoritative content around.
With high-quality content that’s built around strategically selected keywords, you can drive more organic traffic to your website, increase visitor numbers, and potentially boost conversion rates.
Sounds like a win, right?
Pick realistic topics
When you choose keywords with the right search potential, you also need to pick realistic topics that are suitable for your brand.
Start by considering your competition and identifying what they are doing right and where they are missing the mark. Then go back to your business and objectively choose topics that will work for you.
You also need to consider keyword difficulty when evaluating your keyword ideas.
While seed keywords have the highest search volume and attractiveness, it’s best to opt for long-tail keywords suited for your website.
They will cater to a more specific target audience with higher interest.
You can also use the queries report in Google Search Console to identify keywords you are ranking well for. And then pick related keywords to create content for.
2. Match your content to search intent
Understanding and meeting search intent (also called user intent or keyword intent) is another good practice for SEO.
Matching search intent with the content you create should be a main priority in your SEO strategy.
Authority Hacker’s Gael Breton said it best:
If you don’t check and align with the user’s intent, you won’t rank.
Search intent refers to the searcher’s goal or purpose behind their search query.
What do they want to achieve?
Do they want to learn something, buy something, do something, or go somewhere?
Once you understand the user’s goal, ensure that your content for that specific intent is spot-on so you can rank higher in the search results.
But how can you ensure that you meet search intent?
Surfer’s Keyword Research Tool can help you identify search intent for a keyword you’re analyzing. In this example, “pole trekking” is categorized as “customer investigation” and is closer to transactional or commercial intent.
Keep in mind that although there are 4 types of user intents, they are often worded slightly differently.
Informational intent
When a searcher types informational keywords in Google, they want to learn something.
So your blog posts, glossary terms, FAQs, and research papers need to match their search for education and information.
Examples of informational intent queries are:
- What is X?
- Definition of X
- Examples of X
Commercial intent
Once a searcher understands the topic, they may decide to act on the information.
Commercial intent keywords are process-oriented and fall into the “do” category.
Searchers are now ready to decide how they want to move forward, and the content you create needs to fulfill this specific search intent.
In-depth tutorials and guides are examples of content that matches commercial intent.
When you search for “apply for a credit card,” Google and other engines know that you are looking for an application page.
And that’s exactly what it gives you in the search results.
Transactional intent
A searcher who uses transactional keywords is looking to buy.
This person has decided they are ready to commit to a purchase, so during this stage, they’re narrowing their options, seeking validation, and finalizing the “buy.”
Create content, such as broad landing pages, specific product and service pages, testimonials, and pricing pages, to match these types of transactional intent queries:
- best X
- X vs Y comparison
- X reviews
If you are looking for the “best family tents,” Google understands and will give you nine of the best family tents (with the option to load more).
Then you also see reviews to help you narrow down your decision so you can continue on your purchase journey.
Navigational intent
Navigational intent queries indicate that the searcher wants to go somewhere specific: visit an online store, or a specific web page.
Searchers often have a brand in mind when they use navigational keywords, so it’s essential that your brand appear first in the results when they type in your product.
When a navigational search is related to a brand, the searcher is more likely to buy.
3. Use your primary keyword effectively
Incorporating your primary keyword or target keyword effectively is essential for SEO success. This keyword should best represent what your blog post is about in order for your content to rank.
Use your main keyword in these 4 essential areas of your page:
H1 page title: Place the keyword at the front of the page title or title tag. Searchers like to scan, often just reading the first two words of a title, so chances are higher that they’ll click on your site if they can see that your headline matches what they are searching for.
Header tags: The heading or header tags you use in your web pages structure your content. It’s important to include your main keyword and variations in some of your header tags, such as H2 and H3, to help give context to your content for search engines.
Meta descriptions: Your meta description will appear in the search results together with your page and meta title. This tells readers what your content is about and whether it will help them. Make sure that your description includes your primary keywords.
URLs: Using your main keyword in the web page’s URL tells readers and search engines what your page’s content is about.
Ensure that your URLs are SEO-friendly.
For example, the primary keyword for our pillar page titled “Keyword Research Ultimate Guide: Step-by-Step Strategies for More Traffic” is “keyword research.”
The target keyword appears prominently in the page title, meta tag, meta description, header tags and the article’s URL.
4. Optimize your content with secondary keywords
You also need to use secondary keywords in your content to convey topical depth to search engines.
Since secondary keywords signal semantic relationships, Google uses these to identify related entities on your page.
Finding these on your page will signal to search engines that you have a well rounded article on your main keyword.
Instead of spending hours identifying related keywords in Google’s Autocomplete, Related Searches, and People Also Ask, you can use Surfer’s Content Editor.
The Terms panel shows a list of suggested keywords and their optimal frequency that are relevant to your content.
5. Write compelling titles and meta descriptions
It’s important to write compelling titles and meta descriptions if you want to improve CTR and make it easy for search engines and users to understand your content.
To maximize CTR, titles should be no longer than 60 characters and meta descriptions should not exceed 150-160 characters.
When crafting titles and meta descriptions, consider accessibility, brevity, and capturing quality. Titles should be capitalized, with every word in upper case.
Meta descriptions are like elevator pitches, and they should persuade the searcher that your page is exactly what they are looking for.
You can get more people to click on your content in engine results pages by giving it a catchy title and a detailed, interesting description.
A well-written title and meta description can help your website get a lot of traffic from search engines.
Here is an example of a good meta title and description.
6. Include internal links
Internal links are hyperlinks that connect one page on a website to another on the same domain and are crucial to improving your website’s SEO performance.
Internal and external links aid in offering context to search engines for understanding your content and the relationship between content pieces.
Internal links also help establish a site hierarchy while improving the flow of PageRank through your website. They can also offer valuable additional resources to readers.
How do internal links influence your search ranking?
Linking acts as a vote of trust in the eyes of a search engine. While external links to your pages are the strongest indicators, internal linking can also help search engines understand which pages to prioritize.
Search crawlers use links to discover content on your website.
When you link to a page on your website, you’re essentially telling search engines that this is an important page for you.
Here are a few tips to optimize your internal linking strategy:
Link within related pages in a topic cluster to signal a content hub on your website. This will ensure that your links are semantically related and aid topical authority.
Older content tends to have more authority than newer ones on your site, so ensure that you always link to new pages from old ones.
Use variations in your anchor text.
Don’t link to every page. If you are a relatively new site, link to pages within your topic. Authority sites can get away with linking to pages outside the topic cluster.
Ensure all the web pages on your site are linked so you don’t have any pages without internal links to them. Without pages linking to them, it will be harder for Google to find, crawl, and index content on your website.
Don’t forget to include external links. They can help you associate with credible websites, which can help your standing.
