Little Things You Don’t Know About Search That Make a BIG Difference

By Amanda Korth, Digital Advertising Manager

Published: February 11, 2015

search

Search engine optimization is a tricky thing to grasp. It’s part art, part science and part hoping the algorithms will have mercy on your site. Yet, over time there still seems to remain a few tried and true practices like a well built, quick to respond website, good content and meta data, and quality interactions.

On top of the typical tactics, here are a handful of little things you didn’t know about search that can make a big difference in your optimization strategy:

  1. Renew your primary domains for at least 10 years, this tells Google you are in it for the long haul.
  2. Make sure you have good meta titles and if possible meta descriptions, but don’t worry about meta tags which the search engines don’t appear to use anymore.
  3. Despite critics year-after-year claiming Google+ is dead or dying, don’t neglect it yet. It is still the primary social network owned by Google and to think it has absolutely no merit in search placements is a gross mistake.
  4. Have a keyword list close by whenever you’re writing or creating new web content. Make sure to include a ratio of relevant, researched keywords to grab the attention of search engines, but not so as to affect readability.
  5. Don’t forget that you are writing for two audiences — your customer and search engines. A healthy combination of SEO (search engine optimization) and PTO (people traffic optimization) will ensure you garner the attention of both.

And finally, watch out for ‘search nirvana,’ meaning people who will tell you that they can guarantee to get you into the top slot for every keyword you could possibly imagine related to your business.

The reality is that yes, you can 100 percent have the top slot for the right price using paid tactics. But no one can guarantee you the top organic slot. Organic search optimization is a consistent slog of many little battles while PPC is a dollar driven advertising tactic.  Don’t let others confuse these two aspects of search.