DW Tips

Using outdated search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques will do little to increase your website's ranking on Google, and may in fact harm your ranking.

We've blogged about these three tips before in separate posts, but they are worth repeating as many companies head into their new financial year and start looking at their marketing plans:

1. Stop stuffing keywords

A few years ago, keyword stuffing was a guaranteed way to enhance your SEO. Nowadays, it's just indicative of a business that's trying to spam its way to the top of Google's search engine results pages.

According to a recent Forbes article, keywords are still important in the context of your content, but there's no reason to increase their frequency:

"Keywords aren’t quite “dead” in the idea that you can still use keyword research to come up with good content ideas, but you can pretty much forget the idea that keyword frequency matters. It’s a good idea to write content (and titles/descriptions) that accurately convey the ideas of your pages, but don’t needlessly stuff keywords into your content in an effort to rank higher."

See also: Why You Should Review Your Search Engine Optimisation Strategy

2. Diversify your content

Filling your site with great, high-quality content is a difficult, yet effective way to enhance your SEO. The best way to do this is to have a blog on your website and aim to add a new post roughly once a week.

Blogs aren't the only type of content you can add to your site, though. Google now classifies other formats as content that it didn't used to, such as customer reviews and social media posts. For SEO purposes, you should have a diverse selection of content.

See also: Formatting your Blog Posts for Better Readability

3. Get a mobile-friendly website design

Mobile-friendliness is now a significant deciding factor of your SEO. If you don't yet have a mobile-friendly site, then make it a goal to get one in the new financial year. We recommend responsive design since it will optimise your site both for desktop computers and mobile devices. Furthermore, Google also recommends responsive design, so switching to it will have a positive impact on your SEO. 

See also: Increase Your Google Ranking with Responsive Website Design

 Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net