Top SEO Tips for 2021
SEO is more important than ever moving into 2021. Due to the global pandemic, business owners have been forced to trade mainly online, to maintain and grow their business. New and startup businesses have faced an extremely challenging time, as building up the presence of a new business website can take time and expertise.
Thankfully, a good amount of Search Engine Optimisation or SEO can be done with little or no knowledge of SEO. Depending what your online business goals are, this can be achieved as part of Ecommerce SEO or Local SEO. While very similar in principle, some of the methods and SEO techniques can vary.
Let’s take a look at some of the most important SEO tips to help grow your business website in 2021.
Page Titles
Page titles are one of the most important factors search engines use in ranking a website. Yes, the content must be good and relevant, but this initially determines what a website is about. Use only main keywords that describe your website products or services in short phrases. Don’t just include keywords, it will have a negative effect on ranking. Search engines will only acknowledge a certain length of page title. Try to keep your page title under 60 characters.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are the short snippet of information under a search result in Google and other search engines. While Google state that these aren’t used in ranking, they are your chance to describe that particular web page to a user. It’s your chance to sell your products and services and entice people to click! Again these are limited in the length that will be displayed. Try to keep these under 160 characters.
It’s worth noting that Google may not necessarily display your customised meta description. Google will often extract a snippet of information from your website content, if it finds this to be more relevant or useful.
Page Speed
Google has been making a big effort towards the user experience over recent years, and page loading speed is just the beginning. 2021 will see a big search algorithm update which will focus on extra metrics to improve the user experience. While it’s difficult with little or no SEO experience to work on this. There’s a few things to keep in mind that will help in keeping page loading speed and other factors in check.
Usually, 50% images to written content is ok. Less if possible. Don’t go mad with images, these are one of the biggest factors affecting page load speed. They are the largest files your browser has to load. Animations are also a factor, creating a lot of extra code. Keep your website clean, easy to navigate with some good quality, relevant written content.
If you have some technical knowledge, it’s always a good idea to compress your images, serve them in a next-gen format, and/or use a CDN (content delivery network).
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness)
This is the broad measure of how Google determines the best sites to rank highly in organic search. Whilst they don’t give away any ranking signals they use, it’s a good guide to ensure your website demonstrates these in your content. Show users that you know your industry, speak with authority, providing useful, insightful information, and show you are a trustworthy business. Displaying Google or Trustpilot reviews or other testimonials are a great way to do this.
Conclusion
Hopefully these SEO tips will be useful to ensuring your website is ready for 2021. If you aren’t confident in applying these yourself, consider a reputable SEO agency to help prepare your website, and boost your organic rankings.