In our increasingly connected world, modern businesses can’t survive without considering search engine optimization (SEO). If you want to improve website traffic, SEO is a crucial piece of the puzzle. There’s plenty beyond the SEO basics that can help you take your business to new heights.

Improve your rankings and rake in the profits by incorporating some of the tips and tricks below.

6 Critical Tips for Improving Your SEO Results

#1 Avoid Outdated Practices

SEO is a constantly shifting industry, and it’s important to keep abreast of the latest changes. There are many outdated SEO practices; tactics that would have helped your site 10 years ago could have severe business consequences now. Make sure you’re on top of recent trends and update your strategies as needed.

#2 Create Better Content

In the SEO world, content is king. If you don’t regularly update your website with high-quality content, your rankings are likely suffering. To drive more traffic, provide visitors with valuable, user-friendly content. The better your content, the longer people will spend on your site – improving your overall dwell time. Not a professional writer? Work with writing freelancers to build up a repository of content that you can post on a regular cadence.

#3 Build Better Links

When worried about SEO, many people focus on keywords. Keyword research is important, but you should also consider link building. It’s important that other sites link back to your site – think of each link as an upvote for your site, signaling to Google that your content is worth reading, and your site is worth visiting. There are plenty of SEO link building services that can help you begin building out backlinks.

#4 Optimize for Mobile

Mobile searches have exceeded desktop searches for a while, and that’s predicted to continue. Many consumers are using their phones to search the web, and improving your mobile SEO ensures they’ll be able to find your site.

Use these tips to enhance mobile optimization on your website:

• Make sure your site uses responsive design using a responsive technology framework. These frameworks layout elements in a grid, then shift them based on different screen sizes. That way, elements on a large monitor have spaced appropriately, just as they would be a smaller iPhone screen.
• Keep it simple. Focus on concise copy and clean design – don’t overload smartphone users with excessive graphics, copy, or video that can affect page load time.
• Go easy on the Java. Using too much JavaScript can impact your mobile SEO because it runs differently across different devices and browsers and could affect the overall performance of your site.
• Optimize your forms. Don’t ask for excessive amounts of information to contact a lead – prepopulate information where possible, such as city, state, and zip code.

#5 Optimize Your Images

Text isn’t the only thing that matters. You can make sure your images are doing the SEO work for you. Send content relevancy signals by using keywords in your image file names, alt tags, titles, descriptions, and captions.

#6 Improve Page Loading Speed

If Google can detect that your page load speed is too slow, it can impact your ranking. Plus, a slow website equals poor user experience. If visitors abandon your site after waiting for a page to load, you’ve lost out on a potential conversion – and signaled to Google that your site wasn’t up to par. Take the initiative to optimize server response time and page speed and make adjustments as required.

Final Notes

SEO is constantly on the move, but with the right tips and tricks, you can keep up and give your business a leg up on the competition. Put the above into practice and determine what you can do to enhance your website’s SEO.