“You cannot rest on your number one ranking—because the guy at number 2 is not resting. He is still looking for ways to improve his site.” –Ryan Jones
It has already been a given that search engine optimization (SEO for brevity) is integral to a successful online marketing strategy.
In today’s digital world, integrating these strategies for optimizing your website is paramount if you wish to stay relevant—regardless of whether you are an established business or a startup company. Failing to do so would only impede you from success and might even contribute to your diminished sales and conversions. All of these highlights the importance of SEO, but as any expert would know, the rules on SEO are constantly changing and evolving—and more often than not, without notice!
Unfortunately, when you are in this field–whether you are an expert in digital marketing in the Philippines or elsewhere, you would know that your only choice is to adapt to it or run the risk of losing traction on the traffic of your business website. However, it is necessary for you to stay in the information loop as regards the SEO rules. That is if you wish your website to stay relevant and have people constantly visiting it on a regular basis. Take note: SEO functions as the metaphorical navigation map that steers them to your website, but that does not mean you can arbitrarily implement SEO. You must adhere to Google’s rules or risk being penalized. In this regard, here are some things you might not know about SEO:
- Viral content is not as valuable
Sure having viral content might seem like more of a boon than a bane. After all, it makes your content particularly popular during its run, it gets shared a lot and you get to interact with your audience more than you usually do. However, viral content is incredibly rare and more often than not, it is random. You cannot predict what would catch the attention of the people lurking in the internet. And if you devoted your finances to finding out what exactly that next big thing is, you are going to lose quite a lot of money. Viral content is great—especially for global businesses with expansive customer base but going viral does not have to be your goal. Marketing your product or service appropriately and giving it the right kind of advertising would help you establish your brand.
- Bad SEO is bad for business
No use denying it, but bad SEO is bad for business. This means that using outdated and black SEO techniques can be detrimental for your business. Unfortunately, many SEO experts would still try their luck in the hopes that it would go unnoticed by Google. Inevitably, they were caught and not too long after, penalized. But how do you distinguish good SEO practices from bad ones? Well, so long as you continue to deliver quality results to your audiences and understand that Google’s tweaks and upgrades is to do exactly just that then you have nothing to worry about. Do not take shortcuts and fill your website with quality content. Make sure you stay on top of innovations such as mobile web and link only to trusted and quality websites.
- Incoming links are not always good SEO
We have been led to believe that incoming links are avenues for boosting our search rankings. Well, for the most part, it can. However, if websites having authority issues and questionable domains are linking to you then it can seriously hurt your rank. This is especially true when these websites are unrelated to your service, product or industry. Be meticulous and thorough about who can link back to you. Take note: Quality always trumps quantity.
- Duplicate content does not always hurt your SEO
A golden rule in SEO is to produce fresh and original content and that duplicate content is a perfunctory taboo which is to be avoided at all times. However, as the rules on SEO are always evolving, know that black hat status also changes over time. Today, duplicate content is not nearly as bad as it once was. However, you need to bear in mind that you have to use canonical tags when you do republish content on your website and ensure that you have asked permission from the site owner in using it.
