8 SEO tips and tricks

Search engine optimization often seems complex and difficult, yet even beginners can use simple tips and tricks to increase their ranking in search results. From improving individual website components to signing up for powerful analytics tools, beginners can easily and effortlessly use the same techniques that SEO experts rely on. To learn how to quickly and sustainably optimize your website, read the following eight tips and tricks.

1. research suitable keywords and compare your competition

The so-called keyword research is essential to understand the SEO of your site and your competitors. Fortunately, you don't have to be an "SEO guru" to find the right keywords for your website. With free tools, like Semrush, you can research new keywords for products and services that are of interest to your visitors. Although there is a daily limit for researching keywords, the tool is convincing with important statistics about the number of monthly searches of a certain keyword or the competitor's positioning within a certain phrase. You can also view a list of related keywords to get new content ideas.

SEM experts also use tools like Semrush for competitive research. To do this, enter your URL and the URL of any competitor in the Domain vs. Domain feature. Select the keyword type you want to investigate - for example, "organic keywords".

Accordingly, you will see a comparison of these pages sorted by keywords, positions in search results pages and much more.

Once you know where you stand in comparison to your competition, you can target your content and inbound marketing accordingly and gain an advantage over other brands.

2. use keywords in the most important areas of your website.

Optimizing specific areas of your website is also called onpage SEO. This process is very important to improve your ranking. The areas of onpage SEO include:

The page title
The meta description
The headings (H1, H2, H3 etc.)
The URL
The text of links that lead to your page

Make sure you use your keywords according to the above aspects. This is how you signal to search engines that your content is relevant to that keyword search.

One way to avoid onpage SEO mistakes is to use tools like BrightEdge. These tools provide recommendations for using the right keywords in each page range.

BrightEdge can notify you if keywords are missing from the page title or meta description and even recommend which keyword is best to use.

3. Automate your social media posts.

Automation is another way through which SEO experts make their daily routine easier. In order to always be noticed by the target audience and keep in touch, continuous social media posts are recommended.

To do this, go to Facebook's publishing tools. In the site bar, select the Posts section. Here you can view your scheduled posts.

Click the button to create posts or upload photos and videos. The following options are available to you:

Schedule: select a date and time to publish.
Post: Use this to publish the post.
Backdate: You can make posts appear in your Timeline at an earlier date.
Save Draft: Save a draft to publish at a later time.

These tools are very good for publishing posts according to a social media calendar and getting an overview of already published and scheduled posts.

4. Monitor your performance with analytics software.

Whether they specialize in onpage SEO or social media marketing for your inbound marketing strategy. An SEO analytics software will help you monitor the current performance and implementation of your marketing plan. A free and equally comprehensive SEO analysis software is Google Analytics, for example. It is also suitable for beginners. This tool divides features into categories, such as "behavior" and "acquisition". This gives you an overview of where your visitors come from and from which sources. In addition, you'll see the number of your website visitors and a listing of which pages are particularly popular. For example, under Acquisition you will find the number of visitors via organic sources, such as visitors from search results pages, social networks and other sources.

The more you understand the features of such software, the better you will be able to spot important trends in visitor numbers. You'll know which pages are driving the most traffic. Thus, you will learn which topics are particularly popular with your visitors. Based on this, you can fine-tune your inbound marketing and content marketing strategies and increase your sales and profits.

5. check the number of external pages that link to yours.

External links that link to your site are an important factor. Among other things, they influence whether your page appears in the first results of Google or goes down because of the results of your competitors. The pages with the most links from external sources are most likely to be ranked among the most relevant and important results by search engines.

To determine the popularity of your page and the number of external links, tools like Ahrefs will help you. Based on your URL, you will learn the number of links to your website and their influence and importance. However, it is not enough to focus only on the number of links to your website. Your site should especially get links from websites that have a high reputation and expertise in your industry.

6. contact influencers to promote your products or your content.

Small as well as large companies participate in the currently most hyped form of inbound marketing: influencer marketing. Together with influencers who already enjoy the trust and respect of thousands or even millions of followers, you can very effectively promote products and services. This will increase the reach of your business.

Possibly, your marketing budget will limit collaboration with very popular influencers. Some social media stars, for example on Instagram, get several thousand dollars per post. Even without a big budget, you have the opportunity to get the attention of other important social media accounts. So you can offer free products or services in exchange for a sponsored post or review.

7. Create your own images that are easy to share.

It is by using the right images in your inbound marketing that your posts are suitable for sharing on social media. This will increase the number of your followers and the number of external links to your page. However, you don't have to be a graphic designer to get your followers to share. Programs like Canva make it possible for even the untrained to quickly create sophisticated images for banners, infographics, or social media posts. Posts with images are the most shared. According to social media app Buffer, tweets with an image have an 18% higher click-through rate compared to posts without images.

8. use alt texts for keyword optimization.

Another proven SEO method is adding keywords to your website's alt texts. This is not only another way to SEO optimization. You are also helping visitors to your website with visual impairment at the same time. This is because alt texts are read by screen readers. So people with visual impairment get the text read out by the screen readers.