Eight SEO Tips To Help Grow Your Online Presence In 2021

Happy New Year everyone. 2020 sure has been a rollercoaster year for us all. It also has been a year full of major events. This couldn’t be more true when it comes to the fast-growing landscape that is Digital Marketing.

There was one event towards the end of 2020 that helped set the stage for the future of Digital Marketing. That event was the December 2020 Google Core Update. These updates happen to encourage websites to write content that addresses users’ needs instead of just trying to please search engines. Google and other search engines strive to bring users relevant content and that is what brands need to do too.

A great way to help provide that is via a quality Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. These eight SEO tips will help address the needs of users while helping grow your online presence in 2021. Let’s go over them, shall we?

Avoid Black Hat SEO Tactics

An important lesson to know about SEO is that it is a long-term online strategy. This means that we must never try to trick the search engines in hopes of getting high search rankings. That is what we call Black Hat SEO tactics. Here are some examples of those tactics that you should avoid doing.

Cloaking

This is the practice of showing the search engines a different set of content than what is actually on a site. The actual content turns out to be subpar and gives users a bad experience. That will get you in big trouble with the search engines.

Duplicate Content

This is taking content from others and passing it off as your own in hopes of getting higher search rankings. Search engines will not be kind to sites that duplicate content and will harm you in the end. On top of that, this is plagiarism as we learned in English class.

Irrelevant Links

This is the practice of seeking any link from sites that provide irrelevant content from what your site is about. This will make your site look like spam and that will not go well with the search engines.

Keyword Stuffing

This is where sites use the same phrases nonstop throughout their site in hopes of attracting web traffic. This is spam-like behavior that gives users an unpleasant experience. It will also harm you in the search engine results page (SERP).

Spam Blogging

This is the practice of commenting on other blogs or letting others comment on yours for link juice. Blogging on posts that have nothing to do with your cause makes you look like spam to users. In return, it will cause harm to your search rankings.

In other words, don’t do it. Black Hat SEO will do you no favors in earning trust from users. It can also harm you in the search engine results page and could even get you de-indexed. Always go for White Hat SEO tactics instead to help increase your presence towards the right people.

Seek Quality Links

It is crucial to not seek just any links. You want to focus on links that are most relevant to your brand’s cause. Focusing on getting the right links helps your brand stand out to the right audience in a positive way. It also benefits both you and your linking partner as you’d both benefit from high quality web traffic. When seeking links, always go for Quality over Quantity as you would in other Digital Marketing situations.

Make Use Of Long-Tail Keywords

If you’re looking to increase your conversion rate, then turn to long-tail keywords. Long-Tail Keywords are long, specific keyword phrases that visitors commonly use when closing in on a purchase. According to a study by Neil Patel, using long-tail keywords averages a 36% average conversion rate. This will help go a long way in helping outrank your competition while building up your long-term online presence.

Some great tools to help you uncover long tail keywords include SEM Rush, Answer The Public, and Google Keyword Planner. Tools like those will help you identify keywords that will best help you reach the right audience.

Match User Intent With The Most Relevant Type Of Content

You also want to keep in mind where they’re at in their customer journey. That is why you need to know the three types of user intent below. That way, you’ll know what type of content is most appropriate to develop for that specific audience.

Informational Intent

This is where people look for the ‘I Want To Know’ type of content like FAQs or How-Tos. The goal is to bring in the right kind of users who are not familiar with brands like yours.

Navigational Intent

This is where people search for “I Want To Go” content types such as store locations and customer service information. The end goal here is to provide a great shopping experience and provide top-notch information that best helps customers.

Transactional Intent

This is the type of content that you would encounter at the end of the customer journey. This is where “I Want To Do” content types like Videos and Product Stories appear. The end goal here is to seal the deal with the customer and get them to hit the Buy button.

Keeping the intents of your audience in mind will help you plan which types of content you should develop. By following this step, you’ll help provide your users with a great experience at every step in their customer journey.

Strive For High-Quality User Experience (UX)

A crucial tip in growing your online presence is to give your audience a high-quality UX while on your site. One thing to do is to work to keep your site up to speed. A great way to test your site speed is to use the GTmetrix tool. This will give you details on how you can help improve your site speed.

You also want to make sure that your website is easy for users to navigate. A great way to accomplish that is to make your content be accessible in the least amount of clicks/taps possible. This helps your users find what they’re looking for much quicker.

You also want to ensure that your website is responsive across all devices and that it works well on mobile. With mobile taking up a large percentage of today’s online searches, this is crucial to ensure success in attracting visitors.

Make Your Main Points Clear And To The Point

To attract readers’ interest, you always want to make your key points at the beginning. First, use headings and subheadings that best explain the topic without needing to read further. This will help guide readers into reading information that is essential to their research.

Also, use the Inverted Pyramid writing style for best SEO results. This means work to put your key points in the first paragraph and work to entice readers to read further. Readers will be encouraged to read on if they can find value by scanning the text.

To help make the flow of the text be clear, use transition words. Examples of them include “less than” to compare and “thus” to conclude. No question that they’re helpful in making your points while bringing clarity to your readers.

Utilize The E-A-T Method

A very important tip in helping grow your online presence in 2021 is making use of the E-A-T method. EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. To demonstrate expertise in YMWL (Your Money or Your Life) topics such as medical advice, formal expertise is basically a must. For Non-YMYL topics such as sharing your experience with a disease on a support page, it’s all about demonstrating everyday expertise. Expertise is vital in developing high-quality content.

You also need to demonstrate authoritativeness when developing content. Raters check up on authority via independent sources like reviews and expert recommendations like on WebMD. This sure is something to consider when thinking about what type of content you should create.

People also look to how trustworthy content creators are. They look to things like content accuracy and proper citation of sources. This will go a long way in building trust with the right audience and helps attract them in the end. The E-A-T method will help ensure that your content is high-quality and overcomes any core update that comes along.

Make Voice Search A Big Part Of Your Plans

A growing online trend that we should take note of is voice search. According to a DBS Interactive study, 27% of online users use voice search. Voice search queries tend to be longer so it is a great idea to make use of long-tail keywords. In addition, they tend to be questions so including FAQs for your pages would be a great plan to utilize. Voice search may be small now but it will be a big thing in the future. That is why you want to make it a big part of your online marketing strategy going forward.

A People-First SEO Strategy Grows Your Brand For The Better

There is no question that taking a people-first approach to SEO helps grow your brand’s online presence for the better. In addition, making it easier for your website visitors will make it more likely that they convert into paying customers. When you put the needs of the people first, the search engines will reward your brand greatly in the end. By giving your users a great experience at every step, your brand will be set up for long-term success.

What do you feel is key to growing your online presence in this new year? What other SEO tips do you feel are essential to helping your brand succeed? Questions? Comments? Please feel free to share this blog post and share your thoughts below.

White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO

White Hat vs Black Hat? Whatever could that mean? You might be thinking that a battle in the Wild Wild West is about to go down. While it might not be exactly that Old Western battle that involves cowboys, vaqueros and prospectors, there definitely is a battle between brands in standing out in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The way that brands accomplish just that is via Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Most good brands would work towards focusing their SEO strategies around their ideal consumers. There are others who focus their SEO strategies on trying to trick the search engines like Google and Bing in order to get ahead. The latter my friends is what we call Black Hat SEO.

Six Black Hat SEO Tactics To Avoid

Black Hat SEO is best defined as the practice of obtaining website traffic by means of foul play against the rules of the search engines. While Black Hat SEO may get you some wins in the short term in terms of attracting web traffic, it can doom you in the long run in a way that you’ll never recover. With that being said, I’m about to describe to you six of the most common Black Hat SEO tactics you’d be wise to avoid.

Irrelevant Keywords

There are some who try to use keywords that are not relevant to their cause just for the sake of attracting search engine traffic. It might bring you plenty of traffic at first but at the end of the day, the users will bounce away from your site. Eventually you’ll lose your credibility with the online users and the search engines.

Keyword Stuffing

There are some that will use the same phrases over and over again throughout their online content just for the sake of trying to attract search engine traffic. For example, take a look at this sentence below:

“Come shop at out Doggity Dog Shop and get the Doggiest Dog Dog clothing for your doggity dog so that your dog is the doggiest dog of all the doggity dog.”

Definitely a head-spinning experience for online users (By the way, I love dogs 🐶. They’re so adorable as is my sister’s dog Zeus.) Like with irrelevant keywords, it won’t end well when it comes to where you’ll end up in the SERP. Not to mention that you’ll bore and annoy the online user.

Irrelevant Links

There are some that will seek backlinks towards their site just for the sake of attracting website traffic. Seeking just any link from websites that provide no relevant content from what your brand is about will make you look spammy. Obviously, participating in online spammy-like behavior won’t go over well with the online user and could even get you penalized by the search engine.

Cloaking

There are some that will attempt to fool the search engines into giving their site a higher ranking by showing the search engines a different set of content than what it actually is. Most of the time, the actual content is of low quality and provides the online user content that gives them no value or worse, a negative experience. This is an absolute NO-NO and could get your site greatly penalized or banned entirely from the SERP.

Spam Blogging

There are some that will comment on the blogs of others or let others comment on theirs just for the sake of obtaining link juice in hopes of getting higher rankings in the SERP. Let me tell you something, simply blogging on posts that have nothing to do with your cause will do you no favors and will make you look spammy in the face of the online user.

Duplicate Content

There are some that will take content from other pages and then put it on their own page making it look like it belongs to them in hopes of getting a decent ranking in the SERP. Let me tell you that will not go over well with the search engines and could get you penalized. Also, that is online plagiarism as we all learned in English class during grade school.

As you can see here, Black Hat SEO tactics will do you no favors in the end. On the contrary, it will greatly hurt your standing with both the online user and with the search engine. In other words, DON’T do it. Black Hat SEO is poison, evil and potentially deadly when it comes to your standing with the search engines. Thankfully, there’s a better way to go by making your brand’s voice heard in today’s online world. That something is the exact opposite of Black Hat SEO which is called White Hat SEO.

Five White Hat SEO Tactics To Embrace

White Hat SEO is best defined as the practice of obtaining website traffic via online consumer-oriented means that actually focuses on building relationships with your ideal target audience while being within the rules of the search engines. While this route may take time for you to see strategic results, it will pay off in the long run while helping increase your online presence towards your potential customers in a positive way. With that being said, here are five of the most common White Hat SEO tactics that will help you achieve quality results.

Keyword Research

What everyone must do in order for their ideal consumer to find you is to think like them. Study their search intents at every stage of the customer journey. Are they asking a question? Are they ready to make a purchase? These are questions to ask yourself before choosing keywords that are most relevant to what you offer and that will best attract your audience to your website. Keyword research will make a big difference when planning your content that will help attract the right people to your website.

Relevant And Quality Links

When it comes to link building practices, it is important to not just seek any links. Definitely focus on seeking quality links that are most relevant to your cause. Focusing on getting those right links will help your brand stand out towards your audience in a positive way. It will also be a win-win situation for both you and your linking partner as they would both benefit from that quality web traffic due to your discipline in seeking the right links. In other words, Quality over Quantity wins out here as it does in countless Digital Marketing situations.

Quality Blogging

Just like when it comes to link building, the best blogging practices come when you focus your efforts on those who are most relevant towards your cause. When reaching out to the blog owners, important to be authentic when composing that message. Show interest in their work and offer something that is of value to them that will help grow their cause. Using the Quality over Quantity approach while showing genuine interest in your outreach approach will help lay the foundation towards achieving strategic online results.

Quality User Experience (UX)

Definitely important to give your online audience a quality experience while they browse your website. Websites that are easy to navigate and up-to-speed are more likely to be viewed favorably by your online audience. In order to ensure maximum success, making your content easy to find in the least possible amount of clicks or taps will help your audience find what they’re looking for in a much quicker fashion. It also is a great idea to ensure that your videos on your site are no more than one minute and make sure that your website is optimized for mobile as mobile takes up a large percentage of today’s online searches.

People Over Search Engines

When it comes to developing your actual content, it is important to develop an approach that is Customer-Centric. While you do need to ensure that your website is visible to search engines, you also need to think of your customers first. When placing your keywords into your online content, do so in a way where your sentences are clear, understandable and easy to read. Ensure that your web content focuses on the needs of your ideal consumer and helps lead to resolving their inquiries. Focusing your Digital Marketing strategies on being the solution to the problems their ideal audience faces will help your brand stand out in a positive way. Also, don’t be afraid to share your story in a way that resonates with your audience and inspires them to take action. Taking the Customer-Centric approach to Digital Marketing will help your brand stand out against your competitors in today’s online world.

As you can see here compared to what you saw in the Black Hat SEO section, White Hat SEO is much more likely to yield you strategic results that will help lay the foundation towards long-term relationships. White Hat SEO is that magic potion that will help catapult your brand towards new heights. Ranking highly in the SERP does take hard and does take time but at the end of the day, staying true to your end goal towards customer-centricity will pay dividends for the better.

White Hat SEO Wins Big In The Wild Wild Online World

As you can see here, White Hat SEO is the Good while Black Hat SEO is the Bad and Ugly. In today’s online world, Good is what wins all the time, every time. The key to success is by implementing an online strategy that is relevant to your brand’s cause, focuses on authentic outreach strategies and focuses on the needs of your target audience. In other words, Quality Over Quantity and People Over Search Engines is how you accomplish your Digital Marketing goals. By staying true to your brand and showing long-term commitment towards your goals, you’ll be on your way to success in building your online presence and grow your brand for the better.

What SEO strategies do you feel will help grow the online presence of brands in the long run? What SEO strategies do you feel we should all avoid? Questions? Comments? Feel free to share this article & don’t be afraid to share your thoughts below.