Attracting people to your website is your number one goal as an online business owner or entrepreneur.
After all, the reason you have a website is that it allows you to catch the attention of a small slice of the 4.66 billion people who use search engines like Google every day.
How do you catch their attention?
Simple: you use great SEO tactics for 2021.
What Is SEO And How Is It Relevant In 2021?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a type of digital marketing strategy whereby you optimize your online content so that it ranks higher in internet search engine results.
For example, if you own a laundromat and you want people Googling for laundromats to find your website, you need to use certain tactics to improve your site’s SEO.
Good SEO means that more people will find your website and be converted into customers.
SEO is more relevant in 2021 than ever before.
According to BrightEdge, it drives 1000+% more traffic to websites than organic social media.
Furthermore, BrightEdge also reports that 68% of online experiences (including shopping for goods and services) begin with a search engine.
In other words, if someone wants to purchase a new product or service, they are highly likely to start their search by using Google, Bing, or some other online search engine.
Your website is also likely to receive more traffic from good SEO as opposed to social media marketing.
What SEO Tactics Are Effective For 2021?
In 2021, great SEO is easier to hack than ever.
The 6 tactics below are simple, yet effective, and they will become second nature to you with just a little bit of practice.
1. Write Articles Longer Than 300 Words
The length of an article is integral to its ranking in search results.
But how long should an SEO-optimized article be?
Experts aren’t clear on the answer. Some say between 300-500 words, others say it’s not fully optimized unless it’s over 2000 words.
As a rule of thumb, try to make each blog post and webpage content over 300 words long.
Blog posts should actually be closer to 1000-1500, or even 2000 words.
That’s because website elements such as landing and Contact pages will drive traffic away if they are too wordy.
The nature of blog posts allows them to be longer and more descriptive; and the longer they are, according to Yoast SEO, the more chances you have to use various SEO tactics to your advantage.
And of course, the more tactics you use (wisely), the higher your content will rank in search engines such as Google.
2. Write Smaller Paragraphs
Have you ever received an extremely long text message or email that was just a wall of text on your screen?
Long paragraphs look just the same.
It doesn’t matter how well you write or how fascinating your content is: if it looks long and boring at a glance, people won’t want to read it.
Search engines operate the same way. Google, for example, scans website content (like all search engines).
If it finds walls of text, it will rank that content lower in the search results. That’s because that blog post or page is just not very readable.
And readability is one of the factors that Google uses to rank websites higher or lower in its algorithm.
Whenever you’re writing a blog post, remember to break up your paragraphs so that they’re easier to scan and read.
Also remember that traditionally, paragraphs are only supposed to be 3 sentences long.
This is a rule that’s easy, and often properly broken, but let it be your guide if you find yourself having trouble breaking up your content.
3. Craft A Short, Punchy Title
Your title needs to be short enough so that it is entirely visible in search engine results.
But it also needs to be long enough to contain the keyword or keyphrase you want to rank for.
Let’s take the title of this article: “6 SEO Tactics For 20
21 That Will Boost Your Website Traffic.” It’s 59 characters long; Google will usually display 50-60 characters of the title, so people can read the entire thing and not have to guess what it says.
Next, it gets right to the point, when you read the title, you know exactly what the content will be.
Finally, it includes our keyphrase, which is “SEO tactics for 2021.”
Don’t let yourself be intimidated by the challenge of coming up with the perfect title. Just remember to be direct, and use short, punchy language (we used the word “boost” instead of a longer, stodgier word like “improve.”
And always, always include the main keyword that you want people to click on your link to find.
4. Use Relevant Keywords
In case you haven’t guessed it already from our previous tactics, keywords are extremely important to SEO.
They are the words or phrases that people plug into a search engine to find information.
The biggest thing to remember about keywords is you must use the ones that are relevant to your content.
If you own a pet shop, you could use keywords such as, “pets,” “pet adoption,” “care for pets,” “where to adopt a pet,” etc.
Include terms that you know people are searching for when they’re looking for a pet shop – or whatever type of business or service you offer.
Relevant keywords are some of the best tools in your SEO toolbox.
If you put them in your title, your metadata description, and your content, Google is more likely to rank your content higher in the search results for those specific keywords.
5. … But Don’t Use Too Many Keywords
There is such a thing as spam articles or spam content. This is online content that is filled with tons of keywords, links, and other SEO-building tactics, in such high quantities that search engines are overwhelmed.
To combat keyword-stuffed and spam type of content, search engines will not rank articles and pages that use too many keywords or put them on lower rankings.
Use keywords wisely and sparingly.
Don’t repeat them too often so that the content no longer reads naturally.
And remember to make them relevant: don’t use keywords that don’t relate to your content in any way, or else the search engines will read your website as spam.
6. Build Links To Your Website
Link building is probably the most challenging tactic on our list, but it can also be one of the most rewarding.
The process of link building involves acquiring backlinks to your website on other sites.
You can do this through a few different methods, but the two easiest ones are: guest blogging on someone else’s site and referring to your site through a hyperlink, and sharing links on social media and networking platforms such as LinkedIn.
The more backlinks you create, the more reputable your site becomes in the eyes of the all-powerful search engine algorithms.
Backlinks to a page/post, from a technical standpoint, prove that your content is high quality and worthy of being navigated to from links on other sites.
When done correctly, it’s an excellent way of driving more traffic to your page.
SEO is the holy grail for web content, and it takes time to get it right.
Start using the 6 tactics we suggested above right away, and then watch your traffic increase going into 2022.