Every business aim is that their target audience finds their site whenever they search for products or services online. But what's important to understand is that the website in question should also be relatively easy for search engine bots to read so they display it higher in rankings. This is the sole purpose of SEO and in this article, we will delve into the latest SEO trends and the best practices to optimize your websites for search engine rankings in 2019. Read on for our comprehensive search engine optimization starter guide for 2019.

How Significant is SEO?

The concept of SEO is an important one and companies understand that which is why SEO is on everyone’s mind. Implementing even the basic strategies that improve rankings can mean moving one step ahead of competitors and in today’s dynamic market, it could work wonders. According to a recent study, the internet is currently housing over 20 billion websites and to get your website in the top 10 organic results is no easy task. This simple fact highlights that SEO’s importance is paramount for any business and a great deal of attention should be directed towards it.

Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide 2019:

Digital content is rising in popularity and is probably going to reign supreme in the future. This accounts for some major changes and companies will have to come up with ways to increase traffic on their websites. For this, the quality of the content should meet certain standards that Google looks for in order to determine the results to show on page one. To say the least, the content has to be in-depth and insightful that make the website unique and stand out among other rival websites.

Since SEO is a fast-paced and a dynamic field, there are innovative ways emerging that helps improve the SEO rankings. But how do you develop an SEO strategy to dominate your competition in Google and other search engines? One thing companies have to keep in mind is that it’s about providing a great experience for the users that will ultimately result in more ‘hits’ on the website and greater revenues.

Focus on Proper SEO Practices to Optimize Your Websites for Search Engine Rankings

Some practices that can be employed to optimize your websites for search engine rankings in 2019 are -

• The content needs to be extensive and in-depth which means that long articles of 2000+ words with thorough detailing would be favored.
• There should be comprehensive analysis and takes on relevant subjects with solid advice provided to the readers.
• You should be aware of the content put up by rivals and ensure that your content is different and easy to digest for the readers.
• Steps have to be taken to promote the content through paid ads and mainly social media to put it out there where a larger customer base has access to it.
• Investing time in keyword research as knowledge about the keyword frequency makes it easy for the company to know what keywords the user will use to search for the particular product that will increase traffic to the website.
• Usage of FAQ’s as they can be precisely captured by the Snippets that tempt users to click through

Implementing these practices will help your website to score high in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

How to Optimize a Website for Search Engines for Free?

Listed below are some of the best ways to optimize your website to improve its SEO rankings.

1. Making your website mobile-friendly: It is predicted that by 2019, mobile phones will account for 79% of web traffic. Therefore, it makes sense that a website is made more responsive which actually comes recommended by Google itself. Mobile-friendly websites also rearrange the content to avoid horizontal scrolling and this reduces the bounce rate. This certainly helps in the SEO ratings.
2. Be sure to focus on local results. Target hyperlocal meaning that if there is a city your business is located in or that you service. Be sure to have a page dedicated to your service +city or product +city. For example we have a few of these for our Web Design San Antonio and Washington DC SEO pages curated for exactly this purpose.
3. Compress and optimize the images: Images take up a lot of physical space on the server which decreases the loading speed of the site. This results in users leaving the site which decreases traffic and harms the SEO rankings. However, this can be avoided by compressing the images using tools like ShortPixel.
4. Produce high-quality content: This is a pretty obvious thing to focus on. Search engines of Google always aim to provide highest quality content to users because of its algorithmic update. Users appreciate original, interesting content.
5. Pay close attention to UX and RankBrain: RankBrain is part of the core algorithm of Google that helps in determining how the pages are ranked. RankBrain collects user experience (UX) data about how users interact with the web pages displayed on SERP. It does this by keeping track of metrics like click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate etc.

Final Thoughts:

It will require careful planning in performing these practices as SEO rankings cannot improve overnight. The right strategies will have to be implemented depending on the nature of your business but once the numbers improve, it will be worth the effort. Hopefully, this helped you in achieving your business goals and being one step ahead of your rivals. Be sure to leave your comments, suggestions for new articles or any questions below.