SEO doesn’t have to scare you: Shift from being reactive to proactive.

SEO can be confusing. SEO is complex. It is constantly in an evolution state. It is an important factor in marketing.

SEO is often discovered by marketers too late. Their content is already performing poorly. It doesn’t rank for the right keywords. It doesn’t retain readers and has a very low dwell time.

Bad SEO is a waste of time and resources. It is also unavoidable.

It is important to use SEO to your advantage by approaching it in a proactive, not reactive, manner. These suggestions will help you take control of your organic search traffic if you are in the habit of not noticing the impact of SEO on your content and then trying to adjust after the fact.

1. Associate yourself with Google’s Page Quality Ranking Guidelines

You must first understand SEO to be a leader in your industry. This can be difficult. SEO can often feel more like an art than a science. It can be hard to understand algorithms. Sometimes the results can be contradictory. There are ways to make the chaos more manageable.

Google offers a variety of tips and tricks to help you understand how your search engine works. This document is huge and was previously only available to Google employees. It’s now available for everyone, allowing SEO professionals and marketers to better plan their SEO strategies.

The document contains key information that explains Google’s evaluation of your websitespan styling=”font-weight 400 ;”>. It is important to be familiar with key concepts such as YMYL pages. These pages are called ‘Your Money or Your Life’ and contain crucial information that will help readers make informed decisions. These pages are rated higher by Google because they have a greater importance. This means that you must keep them up-to-date and informed (more details ).).

E-A-T is an essential component of Google ranking. This acronym stands for expertise authority and trust. These three elements help determine how high a website should rank.

Google’s Page Quality Ranking Guidelines can be overwhelming. You don’t have to read the entire thing every quarter. You can learn the basics of many concepts by studying them. Keep it handy so you can refer to it in the future.

2. From the beginning, think carefully about each piece of content.

Everybody knows the importance of linking and keywords in SEO. These critical components are often overlooked during the planning phase. Before you make your content.

This is where things get complicated. It’s easy to focus solely on keywords and neglect the reader. This is a bad strategy.

Good SEO is about putting the reader first, and search engines last. This naturally results in content that is more relevant to the searcher’s needs. This can boost critical SEO criteria like dwell time…which will ultimately increase your SEO over the long-term.

It’s still important to include keywords and linking in your content creation strategy. These steps will help you prioritize your audience while doing this in a smart way.

• Search key phrases and keywords related to your audiencespan styling=”font-weight 400 ;”>: Who are you targeting? What advice or answers do they require? This can be done by searching for generic keywords relevant to your audience and looking at the “Related search” section at bottom of the SERPs. This information can be used to help you decide what content to create.
• You can add keywords to your topic by using a keyword planner. Be sparing. To make your content stand out in search results, you should only use a few additional terms.
• Create completespan styling=”font-weight 400 ;”>: If you are going to create the content, make sure it is as thorough as possible. Complete content is something that answers not only the initial question but also any follow-up questions.
• Include internal links: Last, make sure to link to other parts of your site in each section. Linking to relevant pages consistently can help your site perform better and tie it together.

You can optimize every piece of content by planning keywords and linking ahead of time.

3. Cultivate existing content

It is tempting to jump right into creating new, SEO-friendly content. Let’s take a moment to think about it.

Even if your site is performing well, improving content will not solve the whole problem. Many SEO problems are site-wide. Google clarified that thin content, which is content with little value, doesn’t apply for individual posts. It is a site-wide problem.

This means that if you begin the proactive SEO process with creating new content, your site will need to overcome any low-quality content from the past before it can lift your site out the SEO gutter.

Instead, you can study Google’s search engine guide and get a better understanding of how to improve SEO. Then, begin the reformation process by assessing your current content. These questions will help you assess the content on your website.

• 
  Is it current?
  
• Is it too long ?
• Does it use keywords with no keyword stuffing ?
• 
  Do you have any internal links linking each page?
  

You will be able to identify YMYL webpages as you go. These pages are those that have high value to readers and therefore tend to be graded higher. Keep a list of them and make sure to check on them regularly to ensure they are at their best.

SEO is not something you should leave to chance

SEO can be a powerful tool to make or break your content online. SEO is not something you should leave to chance. Reacting to poor SEO after it happens is also difficult.

Instead, use the tips above to take control of SEO. Begin by reading the Google guidelines. Next, create a solid strategy to guide each piece of content. Review your current site, including any YMYL pages, to ensure you are offering value with past and future content.

SEO can be a key component of your marketing strategy if you are proactive.

John Rampton, a marketing leader and founder at Calendar, is a prominent figure. Follow John Rampton on Twitter @johnrampton

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