Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving your site's ranking in search results. Unfortunately the factors search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo use to rank sites are kept secret and change frequently. When consumers search vocally, their queries are hugely different from how they write them out. The most noticeable aspect of this is that voice search produces many long-tail keyword queries. A site can never have enough content. There is always an opportunity to create new pieces of content, and the newness – or ‘freshness’ – of content is also one of Google’s ranking signals. A fast website keeps the attention of site visitors and encourages them to browse the content; a page that loads slowly will often drive users away - perhaps toward your competitors.

Help a particular phrase to pop in the mind of the searcher

If you recently moved to HTTPS or you plan to do so, mixed content is something you’ll most likely have to deal with. Link to page relevance is if the link is relevant on the page; that is to say if the link makes contextual sense on the page itself. Before the Google Penguin and Google Panda were let loose, SEO’s could manipulate a webpage’s rank more easily by adding lots of keywords to show Google that the page was relevant. This practice is what we now call keyword stuffing and is not just frowned upon by reputable SEO agencies, but is not tolerated by Google. Content simply refers to the text on your homepage, your blog posts, videos you’ve produced, and any podcasts you’ve published. Focus on producing the best content you can – or pay someone to create it for you! Make it compelling, detailed, substantive, accurate and entertaining.

Start ranking for these terms

Start focusing on your visitors, on the people that want to buy your product or services. Pay attention to how and where you’re linking in your content. There’s a balance here that might take some practice to nail down. To a larger degree, your backlink profile is made up of backlinks from external sites (also known as referring domains) that contribute to the overall strength, relevance and diversity of your domain’s backlink profile. Once all of your on page elements are fully optimised including but not limited to your Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions and H1 Headings, you need to start thinking about link building. You may have heard people dismissing this aspect of SEO. Some people have been penalised for not doing it right, others are paying someone to do it and nothing is happening. If done correctly, it can have an extremely positive effect on your rankings, gaining you the positions that have always seem impossible.

Are you interlinking properly?

As time goes on, technology will make it easier and easier to interpret the meaning behind a search query. This will lead to SEOs being able to generate content and offer advice that caters to a much more specific audience and satisfies their needs more completely. We all know that search engines have been trying for years to decrease their reliance on links as a ranking factor. But they haven’t got there yet and I don’t necessarily see that happening in the next year or so. Whereas a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph. Gaz Hall, from SEO Hull, had the following to say: "Anchor text has been a huge talking point within SEO for many years now."

Meaty meta descriptions

Keywords should be relevant. This means your site should be a satisfactory destination for users. Search engine algorithms are designed to detect content that was written for the sole purpose of boosting search engine traffic. Blog comments are a great way to promote content, diversify anchor text and build out a natural link profile. Only link to pages on other websites that you think your visitors would find helpful, valuable and/or interesting. Most people simply ignore this part as not important – please don’t do the same. Remember the following two sayings: “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are” and “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”