SEO Secrets to Rank Higher

For most people, SEO (search engine optimization) remains a mystery. Business owners have no idea how to get higher search rankings.  It is as if industry gurus and professionals want to keep SEO a secret. It seems like the less you know about SEO, the more money they can make. But if everyone knew how to optimize their website, there wouldn’t be a market for SEO.

The information presented here is based on recent changes to the search engine algorithms and the advice presented in this article might not work five years from now. Since search engines are always changing. This article was written for entrepreneurs and website owners in 2019.

In my work, we have noticed four dimensions of search engine marketing that require your immediate attention. These have the greatest impact on your ability to drive more traffic to your website and rank higher in the search engines. So let’s get started!

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1. Get an SSL from your web hosting provider.

The most popular search engines in 2019 are 1. Google Search, 2. Bing, and 3. Yahoo. And like any business or website owner, you want to be ranked high in these search engines. What most people don’t know is that these major search engines now require that you install an SSL(Secure Socket Layer) on your website. This adds the visible little lock icon on the address bar of the browser and the “https://” security in front of your domain name.

If you have not yet purchased an SSL security feature from your hosting, you will not climb in the search results in 2019. That means that no matter how much SEO work you perform on your website if you don’t have an SSL it won’t help you.

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2. Do some SEO, Search engine optimization.

So what is search engine optimization? According to the dictionary, optimization means “taking action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource.” That is to say, SEO is about making the best use of your website’s, content, pictures, and design. Let’s not forget your marketing.

So in short, SEO is about making your web page user-friendly for search engines.  For example, search engines cannot see your website. But they can read the HTML code and content on your site. Search engines need to know what your content is about.

The Little Things Matter

But many times we are in such a hurry to get the website up and running that we neglect the little things that will help our business. This is due to not having a budget for SEO in place. So be prepared to invest in hiring a professional to assist you in this area.

Some quick tips to get started on ranking higher on search results is to have a great title on the page.  The best thing is to plan what your target audience is going to be searching and make a plan to use those key phrases in your site title.

Next, you want to make it a good practice to have a detailed meta description of what your offer and it has to be relevant to the key phrases your target audience is searching for. If you do not know what a meta tag in HTML is, just ask your web designer or front-end developer to help you update this on your web pages.

Don’t Forget!

Last but not least let’s not forget to optimize the <img> tags. These tags in the HTML code tell the browser where to insert images on your web page. Inside the <img> tags there are some alt attributes.I know it’s boring to go and edit every <img> tag, but if you want to rank high do the extra work. It pays off.

3. Upload a video to YouTube.

Once you have optimized your page using SEO, the next thing on your list should be to upload a video to YouTube. Most people don’t think of YouTube as a search engine. But in fact, YouTube is the biggest search engines in the world. The steps I am going to show allows you to start growing right away. Follow these steps to get traffic on YouTube right away:

• 1. Include a well-detailed description of the solution you provide.
• 2. Use keywords that customers would use to find you.
• 3. Create a detailed channel with complete information, like the kind of content you offer, links to your website.

The secret is that when you upload a video to YouTube if properly optimized, it can be indexed faster than a website by search engines. Sometimes within a few days! The more information you add on your channel, the more chances you have of people find you.

4. Create content for social media

Post like crazy on social media! Google search now grades websites for busy use of social media. You have to be proactive in creating content for your business. Start by sharing your business URL (web address) with a solution to a problem your customers might have.

Send it to all of your friends in public messages in your social media sites Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Tell your friends to share your posts with friends and family. Don’t have time to post on social media? Hire a firm to do it for you.

These 4 tips are only the tip of the iceberg.  I hope this marks a new beginning for you and your business. These tips only work if you put in the time and resources into it.

Charles Abraham, is the Creative Lead of StarCima Media, a web development and marketing company based in San Antonio, Texas USA. Charles is an author and blogger focusing in the area of web development, marketing, branding.

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