6 Creative and Actionable Ways to Improve Your SEO in 2023
In today’s digital marketplace, there is no shortage of competition. There is a 5% increase in the number of internet users every year. And the majority of searchers (around 75%) never make it to the second page. In short, it is essential to be on page 1 if you want to succeed. This is where SEO comes in to help.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of methods and strategies used to increase the visibility of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs). As a result, it brings organic traffic to your website, which is the main difference between paid advertising.
SEO as we know is an ever-changing landscape, so it is important to stay on trend if you don’t want to fall behind your competitors.
So we've put together a quick guide to help you improve your site's rankings in 2023.
Here's what we'll focus on today:
- Content quality
- Update your content
- Site loading speed
- Metadata
- By linking to related sites
- New keywords
- So let's get started!
1. Content quality
The quality of the content on your page is probably the number one driver of your search engine rankings – so it's no exaggeration to say that great content brings great results...
High-quality content created specifically for the intended user increases traffic to the site, which improves the authority and relevance of your site. Always try to improve your web writing skills and position yourself as an authority on the topic you are writing about.
There are tools to optimize content. With their help, you can create high-quality, meaningful content that ranks higher in Google.
Using similar NLP algorithms as Google, these tools identify keywords, subtopics, synonyms, and even FAQs that search engine crawlers look for on the page when promoting content.
Key words
Put yourself in the reader’s perspective, how will they get to your content? What set of keywords should you use to reach your audience?
Another thing you can use is multiple keyword phrases.
Identify and target a specific keyword for each authoritative content page on your website. Consider where the ideal place to place your keyword would be to make sense.
Things to look for when considering placement;
Should it be used in the page URL?
Can the keyword be in the page title?
What about putting it in page titles and subtitles?
All of this may sound a bit complicated, but the general rule you should stick to is to be natural and user-friendly. As mentioned, content plays a huge role in search engine rankings. You can reuse your keyword phrase multiple times throughout the page (no more than 4 uses). Be authoritative. Link strategically to relevant sources and additional information – both within your organization’s broader website and even to other useful websites.
Don't forget to use bold, italics, headings (especially H1s), and other emphasis tags to highlight these keyword phrases—but as with keywords, don't overuse them. You still want your language and writing style to read naturally.
Summary - Good content is the best SEO strategy. Results will appear naturally if your content is written for the user and not the search engine.
2. Update your content
Let's emphasize this next sentence. Search engines feel strongly about content.
Regularly updated content is seen as one of the best indicators of site relevance, so make sure to keep it up to date. Review your content on a set schedule (e.g. semester) and make updates as needed.
Write additional content regularly, using your targeted keyword phrases. This is where blogging comes in handy, as it’s a great way to boost your rankings. Blog posts can be shorter updates on the specific topics you’re targeting. Linking to relevant web pages in your CMS and blog posts when it helps give the reader a better picture or additional information on the topic.
3. Improve your website loading speed
Google states that depending on how fast your website loads, it can have a direct impact on your page ranking.
Check out this study by Neil Patel. The results of the study show that pages that are at the top of the first page of Google usually load much faster than other pages placed at the bottom of page 1.
So you may want a faster response from the site rather than a slower one.
So what can you do to help your website load faster?
There are tools that can help you check your web speed and give you a quick measurement of your site such as:
- Google’s PageSpeed Insights
- WebPageTest.org
- Pingdom
It gives you a metric score (along with explanations for that score) that works out how the page is loading, as well as a quick analysis of which part of the page should be modified.
In short, all of these places will show you which directions you should gravitate towards to fix your issues and improve your website speed.
Here are some quick tips that we've typically found helpful:
Use compressed images.
Move to a better host
Try to reduce the file size of your website page.
Remove all unnecessary third-party scripts
4- Metadata
There are invisible meta tags on your pages that provide information. They are called “metadata” and although they are not displayed on the page itself, they can be read by search engines and web crawlers and are therefore a vital part of SEO.
Google uses this metadata collected from meta tags to better understand a web page. They can use this information for ranking purposes, to display snippets in search results, and sometimes they can ignore meta tags.
Meta tags are placed in the <head> section of an HTML document, and so must be coded into your content management system (CMS). This may be easier or harder depending on the platform that powers your website: an “out of the box” solution like WordPress will have a section dedicated to meta tags like canonical links or meta descriptions.
In short, it makes it easier for search engines to identify what your content is about.
As your site goes through occasional changes, it is also important for you to review and update your metadata.
Here's our recommendation on which metadata to focus on:
Title Description Data
Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of the browser window and as the main title in search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page.
This adds to the importance of using well-thought-out page titles that are rich in keyword phrases.
Metadata Description
A meta description is the textual description that a browser will use to return a search to your page. Think of it as a window view of your site—a short, compelling description of what it contains, with the goal of encouraging people to click through. A good meta description is usually two full sentences long. Search engines may not always use your meta description, but it’s important to give them the option.
Keyword metadata
Keyword metadata is rarely used to chart search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn’t hurt to add them to your keyword metadata. You’ll want to include a variety of phrases. As a general rule, try to keep it to around 3-7 sentences with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example of this is “Computer Science Degree.”
5. Linking to other related sites
If you have a page whose content is objective, reliable, and rich information, or in short, its content is of high quality. It is more likely to help readers learn about what they are interested in. These high-quality web pages tend to attract links from other websites, helping you rank higher.
Linking to other relevant sites increases your authority and credibility. A common mistake people make when linking to websites is having nice “click here” links. On its own, “click here” has little or no value to a search engine beyond the attached URL. Instead, try entering the name of the destination, such as “Trusted Link Building Agency.” Not only can you improve your page ranking, but you’ll also help the page you’re linking to if it’s keyword rich enough.
In short: Aim to use descriptive links by linking keywords because they give additional value to the engine and your visitors which in turn helps you rank better.
6. Targeting completely new keywords
One way to get your page ranked is to use popular but low-competition keywords. But that's easier said than done.
How can you achieve this?
As you know, most popular keywords are competitive simply because a large number of other websites are using them and they are trying to rank as well.
You can try to come up with new words that have the same meaning. With new terms, you will automatically compete with fewer people and usually quickly climb to the top of the results.
In short - target entirely new keywords.
We hope this guide helps you achieve optimized content for both your site visitors and crawlers. By using these quick tips and tricks, you’ll have a clean, engaging experience and should stand out from your competition in no time.