With every year that passes by, the face of SEO changes. Tactics that were once considered effective are now not only unsuccessful but they can be damaging to your ranking. With that in mind, read on to discover more about the dos and don'ts for SEO in 2020 so you know what you should be looking for and what you should avoid when working with a leading SEO agency.
Do target long-tail keywords
The sort of keywords that gain the best results has changed over the years. Simple and short keywords face too much competition and won't get you very far. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, bring much more value to your website. In fact, research shows that most Google searches have at least three keywords.
Don't overuse keywords
This is not only a dated approach to SEO but a very damaging one. The days whereby stuffing as many keywords as possible into your content was the way to go are long gone. You need to write your content organically. When someone reads it, they shouldn't even be able to guess what the keyword is.
Do concentrate on the performance of your website
One of the biggest mistakes that people make today is assuming that SEO is only about links and keywords. Yes, they are both very important, but SEO is about so much more than this. Website performance, for example, is more crucial than it ever has been. If your website is slow to load or difficult to navigate, you are going to have a high bounce rate, and this will hurt your search engine ranking. SEO and user experience go hand-in-hand today, and all savvy marketers realize this. We would recommend getting a website performance report so you can understand how your site is performing at the moment.
Don't focus on quantity over quality
Gone are the days when it was about producing as much content as possible and getting as many links pointing to your website as possible. Quality is much, much more important today. In fact, if you post lots of boring and duplicate content to your website, this is going to be more likely to hurt your search engine ranking, as opposed to helping it. So, whenever you do something online, make sure quality is in mind!
Do invest heavily in your social media presence
When it comes to SEO today, your social media presence is critical. Firstly, stop spreading yourself too thin. Making an account for every social networking platform you can find is not effective. You need to discover where your customers are, and this requires research. Once this task has been completed, you can focus on two or three social media platforms maximum. Make the most of social media scheduling tools so that you can achieve a consistent posting schedule.
Don't cheat the system
Finally, although we have already spoken about keyword stuffing, there are plenty of other black hat techniques. This includes using white text, for example. Such approaches will result in your website being penalized by Google.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of some of the dos and don'ts when it comes to search engine optimization. Following the rules above is a necessity if you are to achieve SEO success.
