Web pages must contain a minimum number of words, feature targeted keywords and highlight local modifiers to ensure they appear prominently in relevant, organic search results. A strong linking structure and other internal SEO best practices can provide that. Google learned that when people search for the term “SEO,” they were more likely to click on information over a list of services. So, eventually, the algorithm changed to incorporate this behavior, and now it delivers the types of results it believes the keyword is really asking for. By regularly auditing your – or your client’s – sites, you can get a good feel for what you still need to do to improve SEO.

Find a site that’s relevant to your audience

The biggest challenge with SEO is that it’s ambiguous territory—but you shouldn’t let the uncertainty get the best of you. Understand that almost every marketer is exactly where you are now. Everyone’s trying to figure out SEO’s ‘hidden secrets’ with little direction. ‘Mobile indexing first’ means that Google will look at the mobile version of your site to decide how high you should rank. Google Analytics will be able to tell you where those converting visitors came from. And specifically, you’ll be able to see if someone who used your search term eventually ended up buying your product. Measure and monitor what is working and update your strategy on the fly.

Optimise your website navigation

People love to browse through a clearance section for bargains. You could include overstocked items or products nearing the end of their buying season. A dollar section for low priced merchandise can generate a lot of sales, especially if your website offers pop up suggestions for related items from your store. The customers will feel like they are getting a great deal and you will get more sales. Between 2011 & 2015 Google released random, major updates to its organic search algorithm. But the search engine giant has attained a solid foundation, the importance and number of updates has decreased. Google offers another tool called Google Website Optimizer that allows you to run experiments to find what on-page changes will produce the best conversion rates with visitors. Many mobile devices have a text-to speech option which automatically transcribes their words into the search box. People speak differently than how they write, using different words and sentence structure. With other voice to text aids such a Alexa, more and more mobile web search queries are resembling how people speak.

Quality content gives you authority

Using hot keywords and search phrases is crucial to catching people using search engines, but crafted content shouldn’t look mechanical or read like a lecture. The longer and more specific the keywords are, the higher your chances of ranking for this keyword. Of course, this also means that the search volume for this keyword decreases, but you can compensate for this by optimizing a lot of pages on your site for different long tail keywords. The search engines analyze the reading level of the web page. One popular formula for doing this is the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Readability Formula, which considers things like the average word length and the number of words in a sentence to determine the level of education needed to be able to understand the sentence. We asked an SEO Specialist, Gaz Hall, for his thoughts on the matter: "Links increase the authority and trustworthiness of a page to search engines, which increases the overall authority of that website."

Use your location in your body text

To be a part of the party, make sure your business website uses structured data markup. The website with the most links, as well as the most valuable links, wins a higher “rank” in popularity. Once you have exceptional content, you need to find ways to get that content out there and seen. That’s where social media comes in. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn continually prove to play a major role in doing business online. And with social signals—like follows, shares, likes, Google+’s and retweets — influencing search engine results, your business’s social media presence is something to take seriously. The sites that Google will rank highest for a particular search term are the ones that appear the most relevant and that have the best content and best design. At the same time though, they will also be the ones that have the most trust. This means that Google considers them an authoritative resource and expects the information on their site to be accurate and well-written.