Being thrown onto a desert island to engage in hand-to-hand combat sounds harsh. But SEO is really fierce.
Google only has one home page, and everyone with a website is competing for a place on it. Winning this game really means beating the losers. He’s competitive, aggressive, and not for the faint of heart.
There is a key difference between the Hunger Games and the SEO War. During Catching Fire, Katniss says, “Nobody decent wins games.” That is not true in SEO. In fact, it’s the bad guys and the black hats who often pay the price.
So to make sure the odds are always in your favor in the SEO War, be sure to follow these tactics.
Don’t fight alone
Most business owners don’t have time to worry about SEO because they are too busy with their business, which is understandable.
If you don’t have time to run your own campaigns or manage your own site, there are plenty of affordable SEO services out there that don’t have to go broke.
Katniss and Peeta had Haymitch. So, find your SEO Haymitch. Or look for an SEO Yoda, if you’re more of a Star Wars fan.
Write content for human users
Many agencies have moved away from traditional SEO writing in recent years. Now they just focus on writing well.
This means that they are eliminating the Google-centric keyword stuffing tactics of the past. Now they are embracing human-centric tactics, like telling stories and targeting their audience’s pain points.
For the past several years, Google has said that it is better to write for humans, not for search engines. Therefore, focus on the quality of your writing, not the number of keywords.
Avoid spam links
Google put an end to spammy link building tactics a few years ago with its Penguin Update. Before that, you could possibly gain a bit of SEO traction by linking to poor content on unrelated sites. But that has changed.
Now the penguin is watching the web. You need to get organic links, on reputable sites, with quality content.
Focus on mobile devices
Your site’s mobile experience has been a crucial part of your SEO success since Google first announced mobile indexing in 2017. They know that most of the world’s web traffic is now coming from mobile devices, so they are rewarding properly optimized mobile sites.
Today, the mobile compatibility of your site is more important than ever and is a crucial part of Google’s upcoming Core Web Vitals update.
Be fast and be faster
Google also knows that users hate waiting. That’s why page speed has been a ranking signal for some time, and it will be an important part of Core Web Vitals.
Today’s webmasters need to be aware of these crucial metrics:
Larger Content Paint (LCP): How long does it take for a page to fully load?
First Entry Delay (FID): When can users start clicking links and buttons?
Cumulative layout change (CLS): When do all elements on the page stops moving?
Faster is almost always better in SEO, and it’s hard to imagine that changing anytime soon.
These are not tricks or tricks. These are proven SEO tactics to help make sure you’re ready for the next update and that the odds are always in your favour.
