Is On-Site SEO Dead?

There are daily proclamations across sites everywhere announcing that SEO (search engine optimization) is dead or dying. For your peace of mind right off the bat- it is not.

First of all, what is on-site SEO?

The first thing that’s important in this conversation is to remember that SEO is not some new fad or phase; SEO was happening before we even had computers or the internet. Do you remember the yellow pages and local directories? Each business was listed in alphabetical order under the relevant subheading. Before long, business owners wised up and started to put “A” before their company name in an attempt to be earlier in the listings. It was not too long before we ended up seeing companies listed as “AAAA Plumbing.” We can all be fairly certain that these were not the initials of the owner. No, these were an attempt to increase chances of being seen first.

On-site SEO is no different from these methods. What you see today are strategies that are continually tweaked by business owners to help their website rank higher in the modern-day equivalent of phonebooks: search engines. When you optimize your on-site SEO, you ensure that the reader knows the intent of the page, that it answers questions to a specific query, and that it’s worthy of ranking well on the search engine results page (SERP).

In short, on-site SEO is not dead. Although it is true that there have been many changes as search engines have wised up to practices that some would deem shady, there are still plenty of ways for you to optimize on-site SEO on your website. The fact is, as searchers evolve, so too do search engines, which means on-site SEO has a long future ahead. Take a look at some of these effective and affordable ways to get your site to rank without paying a fortune.

Effective On-Site SEO Strategies

• Using Relevant & Current Content
• Backlinks
• Blog Directories
• Videos
• Mobile Optimization
• Voice Search Function

Some of the Most Effective On-Site SEO Strategies

Using Relevant & Current Content

Search engines are focused on delivering the end user an efficient service that provides valuable information quickly. As a result, they favor and therefore rank highly websites that have low bounce rates and provide high value, good quality information. One of the ways to achieve this status is by keeping a blog that you regularly post to, sharing expertise. These shouldn’t be keyword stuffed: search engines are smarter than that now; however, meta tags and appropriate HTML headings can be used to further enhance the articles. Stuffing your content with keywords (the things people are searching for) can decrease its value, and therefore, lower your ranking on the SERP.

Backlinks

Backlinks are other websites that have a link to your website. These are important, because if your website has hundreds of others pointing to it, it tells the search engine that there’s a lot of people recommending and paying attention to your information. The search engine therefore assumes that your site is relevant and important, and ranks it higher. Backlinks can be obtained by reaching out to other webmasters and offering reciprocal backlinks. These can also be achieved by being active on forums and within communities that you seek to impact. By creating a profile on these sites, each time you comment, your “signature” will include a backlink to your site.

Blog Directories

There are hundreds of websites that act as blog directories. These sites want you to submit your blogs to their website to build up their content. In exchange for doing so you not only acquire backlinks in the signature, but you also have a vast amount of data and information also being ranked by search engines. This enhances the reputation of your website within the search engine and results in you being rewarded with better SERP positions.

Videos

The amount of video traffic is increasing dramatically year over year. Search engines rank this type of content highly as it is user friendly; therefore, having video content on your website will cause it to be ranked higher. Search engines are also increasingly letting users search specifically which type of data they are looking for, such as news, music, images or videos, so having all these formats available will propel your site over and above those that do not provide easily digestible data. Plus, you can link these videos on your social media accounts to build hype and drive traffic back to your website.

It’s important to remember also that YouTube, in addition to being owned by Google, is the second largest search engine in use. Any content you put on YouTube will drive a large amount of organic traffic to your site, along with increasing how highly your site is regarded in its own right.

Mobile Optimized

As traffic from mobile devices increases, it is essential that your website is optimized for mobile use. Optimization for mobile use not only includes making sure your website is visible and user friendly to those on mobile devices, but that it also loads in a reasonable time, without losing any formatting.

Voice Search Function

While not yet deemed essential, this will get you ahead of the curve and keep you there. As we become busier, our need to find and digest data even faster increases. As a result, while driving, holding children or multitasking, voice search is seen as safer, faster and even more efficient. Currently, the number of sites that provide this are very small and the onus is on our device’s voice-activated software to carry the load. This will increasingly become a feature or requirement of websites in the future.It is projected that by 2020, 50 percent of all searches will be voice.

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