If you’d like to boost your organic site traffic and use SEO to meet your business goals in 2018, there are certain techniques and strategies you should make a priority. By following these 10 SEO tips this upcoming year, you can please Google and rank higher for the keywords of your choosing.

1. Make Sure Your Site is Mobile Friendly

Gone are the days when site visitors would only use their desktop to surf the web. Now that smartphones and tablets are regularly used, you must make sure your site is easy-to-use and visually appealing on a mobile device.

2. Use Long-Tail Keywords

Rather than solely focusing on short-tail keywords that have a lot of search volume, you should opt for long-tail keywords that narrow down on the needs of specific site visitors. This way, you can draw in highly targeted traffic that converts.

3. Secure Your Site

To make Google happy and inform your site visitors that your site is secure, you should take the time to switch your site from http to https. This strategy is especially important if your site collects personal customer information.

4. Focus on User Experience

You could have the greatest content in the world but if your site isn’t user-friendly, its rankings will suffer. Therefore, focus on making your site easy to navigate and understand so that visitors don’t bounce.

5. Spend Time Building Quality Backlinks

Although building quality backlinks is time-consuming, you can enjoy high rankings if you do it. Remember that Google is not a fan of paid or spammy links and may penalize you if you have them.

6. Ensure Your Pages Load Fast

Site speed can make or break your SEO. According to research, sites that do not load within the first 3 seconds are usually abandoned by site visitors, making it important for you to ensure your pages load as quickly as possible.

7. Update Old Content

If your site contains old content such as blog posts that were published a few years ago, you should update them by extending their length, adding images and videos, altering meta data, and making them more applicable to your customers today. Google will likely notice your content updates and reward you with improved rankings.

8. Don’t Forget Image Optimization

While it’s important to optimize your site content, it’s just as crucial to optimize your site images. Make sure the images on your site are named properly and feature alt tags that give them a good chance of appearing in image searches.

9. Gain More Positive Online Reviews

The importance of good ratings and reviews should not be overlooked. With good ratings and reviews, you can improve your local SEO performance, understand the customer experience, and build customer trust and loyalty.

10. Add Videos to Increase Engagement

Since Google values site engagement, adding videos to your site in order to increase it is well worth the time and money. Interesting and useful videos are sure to increase your average session and page times.

Since SEO is ever-evolving, it’s essential for you to stay up-to-date on the latest techniques and strategies. By doing so, you can meet and even exceed your business goals in 2018.

SoftMirage offers seamless e-commerce integration and marketing solutions for your business. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.