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Search engine optimisation or “SEO” is a business buzz word that we’re all intimately familiar with. Whether you know a little, or know a lot, most business owner understand SEO is a powerful process that gets their business found on Google. Officially, SEO is the process of achieving online visibility for a website or a web page in the unpaid search engine results. SEO is often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results. Back to 2019’s million dollar question: what precisely do you need in a successful search engine optimisation [SEO] strategy in 2019?

Quality Content

Lets start with content. Content will continue its reign as king in 2019. But this year a “near enough” is good enough approach to your content may not make the grade. Today’s social media audience demand high quality content that impresses, inspires and has impact. Your audience is evolving and expects insightful and relevant content.

Google provide the following basic guidelines for content:

• Design and create pages primarily for your users, not targeted at search engine crawlers.
• Be honest and Transparent. Google does not like it if you try and deceive your users.
• Avoid “short cuts” intended to trick and improve search engine rankings.
• Make your website stand out from your competitors.

2019 demands quality “long-form” content. 1-500-2,000 word posts are ideal. Ensure posts are in-depth enough to completely cover a topic. Include your own analysis and provide solid recommendations to your readers. Most importantly, your content needs to be different and original.

Link Building

Links are currently considered the #2 priority when considering ranking factors.

Here are the high value links you should focus on:

• Editorial links – link that from a high traffic site like an online newspaper, that has quality content, reliable sources that follows best practice marketing techniques.
  • Citing someone from your business or something from your content as a source of information
  • Referring to your website as a resource for information
  • Including your website or content in a link roundup
  • Interviewing someone associate to your website
• Guest Blogging Backlinks
• Business Profile Backlinks

Building a quality backlink profile as part of your SEO strategy is vital.

RankBrain

Keep up to date with RankBrain. RankBrain is Google’s Machine Learning algorithm used to help process Google search queries. Basically, it works by taking parts of the entire search and relating them to most popular searches with related terms. It gathers user’s habits and needs while searching and directing a user to a useful content they’re searching.

TIP: quality content is needed to optimise a keyword but also focus on variations. This way RankBrain will notice and reward you with higher placement in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Mobile-First Index

Google will predominantly use the mobile version of your content for indexing and ranking [instead of the desktop version]. Essential the Googlebot will crawl your site as if it was a user on a mobile device. To stay in googles good books, equip your site with a responsive design that will look great on any devices screen size.

Technical SEO: Technically Correct

The process of optimising your website for the crawling and indexing phase is what “Technical SEO” refers to. Essentially this is the process of helping search engines access, crawl, interpret and index your website without any problems so it can display it to the right search results.

Here is what you should focus on in your SEO Strategy:

• Ensure your pages can be indexed
  • Check your index status frequently in Google Search Console
  • Review your Site and URL Errors
  • Check and update your robots.txt file
  • Search for your website
• Secure your website
  • Switch to HTTPS
• Check your Meta Data
  • Check Source Code
  • Run a powerful Auditing Tool to test your website and review current status of all meta data
• Audit your Link Profile
  • Conduct a complete backlink audit
• Optimise Site Speed
  • Use speed testing tools
  • Reduce image file size for optimum performance
  • Evaluate plugins
  • Remove redirect chains
  • Speed-up your JavaScript
• Ditch Duplicate Content
  • Use canonical link tags
• Remove low value pages
  • De-index low value pages
• Create useful links
  • Use descriptive anchor text
• Optimize for Mobile
  • Use responsive Design
  • Use Google testing tools
• Master the Basics
  • Use unique title tags
  • Emphasize keywords
  • Write meta descriptions

Google AMP

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages is designed as an open standard for any publishers to have pages load quickly on mobile devices. Its major positive impact is it increases click through rate through its distinct appearance in Google SERPs, the same as it render pages quickly. It focuses on prioritizing [UX] user experience.

Optimise for Voice Search

Enter Siri, Alexa and Google. Voice search uses speech recognition to understand a query that a user is making. It then finds an online match to answer the question.

According to statistics, 50% of all searches will be voice search by 2020. Google is already placing weighting on this. Planning and implementation in 2019 will be vital. Here’s a few ides to get you started with your preparation for your voice search strategy:

• Start researching keywords
• Research, optimize and repeat
• Create an FAQ page for your website
• Understand where are voice query results coming from
• Optimise for local search
• Optimising for Mobile Voice Searches
• Create an action plan with measurable outcomes

Prepare for Visual Search

Another breakthrough in technology is the ability to perform visual searches. As images and video take up larger portions of search results VX will be at the forefront. This space is transforming quickly as it expands across various platforms (e.g. Pinterest, Bing, Google).

Tips:

• Focus on Organic Image Visibility
• Build Image Search into your Web Inventory
• Incorporate Video into your Strategy

Run SEO Tests

Unfortunately, SEO is not a “set and forget” activity. Research, analysis and ongoing changes are required. You need to regularly evaluate if you’re activity is effective and make changes accordingly.

Equip your business with a digital marketing strategy with impact in 2019! Connect with Elephant in the Boardroom for an exclusive consultation.

Contact us today!

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Visit us: 555 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

Call: 0418 967 352