My Hot 5 SEO Tips for 2019

It’s getting harder to rank organically these days! I believe it’s because there is so much competition. How can you ensure you are going to get in the top ten results in Google for your particular keywords? Read on to get my SEO tips for 2019.

My hot 5 SEO tips for 2019

Tip #1 – a user-friendly website

One of the most important tips is to have a user-friendly website. If your website doesn’t please the user then they will go some back to Google and find one that does!

Make sure you assess the following:

• The main navigation must have all your most important pages in it. If you don’t add your most important pages where people can find them, then how do expect the user to find them easily. This is a big mistake.
• Obviously, you need a logo (some people don’t so I thought I’d throw that in here!). A logo is important to create your brand identity.
• A search facility – this enables users to find what they are looking for if they can’t find something straight away. Don’t expect your users to know your site the way you do. Test the site on someone who has never visited it before to see if they can navigate around it easily.
• Contact details or call to action. This should be easy to find. For e.g. in the top header area of the site and the footer. It should include a phone number, email or a link to the contact page. Make sure you display these details on all devices, especially mobile.
• Layout suitable for your audience When designing your site, think about the following:
  • Is it too cluttered or messy?
  • Is it easy for the user to find what they are looking for?
  • Does the design suit the product or service?
  • Is it conveying the right message?
  • Is the content easy to read – including font colour and size?
  • Are the images sharp and not blurry? There is nothing worse than a site with ugly images. This will destroy first impressions immediately. Invest in some professional images as this represents what type of business owner you are.

Tip #2 – having a speedy website

This is a major ranking factor! Your pages must take under 3 seconds to load! Probably even 2 seconds!! Unfortunately, as technology advances our attention span decreases!!

3 Tips for making your pages load quickly.

1. Optimise your images.  This means to make the quality and dimensions of the image smaller. Loading an image straight from a camera into a web page – is a big no-no!!  I see this issue time and time again!
   • The best sizes are: For a page – around 1000 pixels wide and under 100kb for quality. For a full-width banner – 1920 pixels wide and under 100kb in quality. This tool is great for reducing image sizes and it’s free. https://www.reduceimages.com/
2. If you are using WordPress avoid using too many plugins. Plugins are great! But they can slow down your site. A few tips – Check when they were last updated.  If they haven’t been updated for over 1 year, you should replace them. As the code becomes incompatible with WordPress. And eventually could break your site. Plus poor coding can slow down your site.
3. You can install a caching plugin to speed up your site. With WordPress, this is easy to do but make sure you know what you are doing. Because caching plugins can cause all sorts of problems with the site not loading properly if not set up correctly. WP- ROCKET – is a great plugin for this. https://wp-rocket.me/

Tip #3 – having useful, user-friendly content

This is another major ranking factor. As they say – “content is king”. If your content is crap then you won’t get many conversions and Google knows this. Often users will go to a site, and because they can’t find what they’re looking for. They quickly shoot back to Google to find a site that can help them. This is referred to as the “bounce rate”. If your bounce is is high, usually, your rankings for this page won’t be so good!  

10 Tips for making your content amazing!

1. Always write for your reader and not the search engines.
2. Make it conversational. Like you are speaking face to face or on the phone.
3. Keep it simple. Often I see that content is too technical, for the average person to understand. Even though you understand it, the person coming to your site might not have any idea on what you are talking about.
4. Never copy content from other sites. Always write your own.
5. Use your keywords sparingly, only where they make sense. If you overload the page with keywords, Google will think you’re trying to cheat!
6. Add headings to make sections stand out. This makes it easy for the person to read. And they can scan read if they wish!
7. Write short sentences and small paragraphs! As people, these days tend to shy away from big blocks on text! Check out this article from Yoast (the best WP SEO plugin). https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-readability-analysis/ If you are not using this plugin, you should be! It gives you the best guide for writing user-friendly content!
8. Add relevant images –  use professional images.  Make sure you optimise them as discussed above.
9. Add a call to action – just in case the user wants to contact you.
10. Check your spelling and grammar! There is nothing worse than spelling mistakes. It looks bad!! Use these free tools to help with that. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ https://www.grammarly.com/

To sum up my hot 5 SEO tips for 2018!

Basically, the best way to make a page in your website rank well in Google or any other search engines! Is to think about the person reading it. Write content that is friendly and conversational that they can understand. Check it for grammatical errors, add some headings, and (optimised) images or video! Then share it like crazy on Social Media. If you need some help with this, we offer a 3 hour SEO training course for business owners that goes into more detail. We work on your site in the training. Click here for more details. Written by Jodi Allbon 2019.