DO
Make Sense: Search engine are focusing on content more than ever before. Your website stands the best chance of topping search results if you are providing the user with rich, relevant, and fresh content. Mix and match your content – text, infographics, images, videos, etc. Well researched content that goes with the theme of your website and contains the right keywords is an ace that stays at the top of the good-SEO heap.
Revere the WOW Factor: Entails plenty of facets – how the site looks, are attractive HTML elements being used to engage the user, did the user find anything shareable, did the user find navigation easy, etc. For all intents and purposes, the site should be eye-catching and efficient enough to make the user stay for long periods, engage with you (by filling forms, carrying out transactions, etc.), and lead to business growth.
Play to the Gallery: The user will engage with your website only if there’s a definitive system involved. Your website must have a purpose for the user to engage with it. Your website has to be informative (Wikipedia, Mashable, etc.), or communicative (Gmail, Facebook, Tech Forums, etc.), or transaction-based (Amazon, E Bay, etc.).
Perform #Winning Tricks: The keyword strategy you use for search engine optimization must extend to your social media content. Consistent multi-platform optimization for relevant keywords will result in strong branding, which will benefit your brand, online and offline, in the long run.
DON’T
Participate in Density Douchebaggery: Keyword density went out of fashion with Seinfeld and Friends. Keyword usage is unavoidable, but keyword spam is undesirable. Use your keywords sparsely and relevantly on your website. Avoid unnecessary stuffing of keywords. The crucial trick for better SEO is user approval, not content spam. User approval shall come with reliable content.
Play Linkville: There’s no doubt a few links pointing to your site are handy, but search engine crawlers are smarter than you think. They would recognize and validate your link only if it is relevant. This is also the reason why participating in link bartering isn’t exactly a good idea. If a search engine spots that a website that has nothing to do with your website’s theme is pointing to you or vice versa, your reliability in its crawler’s eyes dints greatly.
Take Code for Granted: Search engine crawlers grow fed up of code inaccuracies, which is why they have been programmed to prefer clean code. If your website code is cleaner and tidier, the crawler crawls through it quickly. There are plenty of free and paid online validation tools available. Make use of them.
Demonstrate Copycat Traits: If you are curating content from an external source, use citations and/or give full credit as desired. Again, even with citations and credit, use only what is relevant or the crawler shall treat you as a splog (spam blog).
With every update, Google’s crawling and indexing algorithm is getting smarter. It is only a matter of time before Google, along with other search engines, manages to kick out unethical SEO practitioners. Instead of resorting to those, focus on giving the user what he/she is looking for. That is the best SEO practice!
