Something SE-Old, Something New

It seems like there’s always something new to try when it comes to improving your search engine rankings.  However, long-term SEO success typically comes from a combination of using the latest and greatest techniques, along with the proven strategies that have stood the test of time. If your SEO efforts could use a boost, here are three “tried-and-true” strategies that you may already be using, along with a “what’s new” twist on how these concepts are being used in search today.

Well-written content has always been important to readers, but search engines have not always been able to distinguish well-crafted content from poorly written pages.  But as search algorithms have gotten smarter, they have become proficient in evaluating the quality of a web page, including the “readability” of its content.

According to a recent study by Mathsight, Google has started favoring websites that contain content that is “well written, well researched, and sophisticated,” and now uses scores from the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level test and Dale Chall Readability test to help determine the quality of a website’s content.

Now that Google can more easily tell good content from bad, poorly written web pages and freebie article reprints simply won’t cut it.  If writing is not your strong suit, hire a professional to help you.  Google will reward websites that publish original, quality content, and Readability is now part of the equation.

Visitors and search engines love original content, especially when it is published regularly so there’s always something new to explore.  But gone are the days of asking a staffer to add a blog post once in a while – today you need a regular routine of writing great content, publishing it across multiple channels, and measuring results on an ongoing basis.

Today, more than 86% of successful content marketing programs come from companies that have a designated person (or firm) overseeing and managing their content marketing efforts.  Whether using an internal resource or an outside firm, businesses can streamline their marketing processes and improve overall results by designating a single source for managing content marketing.

For years now, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have been part of the marketing mix for most small businesses, and they continue to be important today.  But social media’s importance now goes beyond collecting “followers” or increasing the number of “likes” your business has on the social networks.

Today, the search engines consider social engagement as a whole – including comments, re-tweets, and other social sharing – when ranking social signals.  The level of social engagement that your customers have with you online (especially through social channels) can now impact your SEO quality scores and search engine ranking positions.

The More Things Change

When it comes to SEO, there will always be updates, algorithm changes, and technology improvements to help make search engines even better and faster at evaluating web content.  Solid, proven strategies like quality content and social interaction can help build a strong SEO foundation, but be sure to pay attention as things evolve.  Tweaking your content readability scores or increasing social engagement just might be the boost you need to make it to the top of the rankings.