SEO is not a medium that is known for being a quick fix. It’s a medium that delivers long term results, that takes time and consistency to deliver the best experience possible for users and search engines. It’s those sites that see sustainable growth and last the test of time, or in our world, navigate Google’s algorithms. But are there any quick wins that we can target?
Daniel Bianchini from Common Ground has suggested 5 of his favourite ‘quick win’ tactics that you can do today, that you have control over, and will have an impact on your visibility in the shortest time:
5 SEO Quick Wins for 2021
Fix Technical Issues that affect Crawl & Indexing
Whilst the SEO world fixates on the latest update that focuses on Core Web Vitals (CWV), and in most cases rightly so, most people are skipping the basic technical issues that affect crawling and indexing.
While CWV is important it needs to be website specific, whereas if you can ensure that you consistently stay on top of the basics then you build a solid foundation. It’s really easy to do also and can be kept on top of monthly.
Simply, fire up Screaming Frog, run a crawl and focus on the following reports:
- Response Codes (200,30X,4XX,5XX)
- Canonicals / Indexation
- Redirect Chains
Fixing the errors here will be a benefit and something that you can fix today.
Optimise Internal Linking
In many ways, internal linking is the quickest win in SEO. Firstly, if you are not linking to content across your website then search engines are not going to be able index them, and therefore users are not going to find them within the SERPs.
Secondly, internal linking gives you an opportunity to indicate to search engines what the page topic is. Therefore you can start to sculpt the anchors that are being used to better highlight the topic that the page you are linking to. It’s at this point that you can start to utilise different anchors, with the aim of increasing visibility across a breadth or relevant terms.
Thirdly, improving the anchors the internal links use can better improve the UX of the website. There are many websites who just use internal anchors such as:
- “Click here”
- “Find out more”
- “More info”
None of which gives a search engine or user any indication of the page that they are about to visit, whereas the following anchors gives you more detail:
- “Download our SEO buyers guide here”
- “Find out more about our SEO services”
- “More information on our paid media services”
The issue with internal linking is that it is very time consuming and can be difficult to do, so most SEO’s put it off for a task later down the line. This is where software such as Twylu can be really useful, taking away the heavy lifting that we do in spreadsheets, whilst also providing automated recommendations based on keywords and Google Search console.
Identify and improve keywords ranking on page 2
There will be hundreds of keywords that you are ranking for a specific page that you weren’t targeting. Just head to SEMrush, aHrefs or even Google Search Console and you will see a huge number of keywords that are ranking in positions 11-14 that have significant volume, and relevant for your business.
It’s this treasure trove of terms that you should be looking for on a monthly basis, across your content. Once you have identified those keywords, you need to look at the existing page and identify where these pages can be improved to push those keywords on to the first page.
Do this to enough pages, then you are going to significantly increase the amount of traffic that you receive, and therefore generate more leads/sales. All without creating new content.
Update Underperforming Content
As well as reviewing content that can be improved with those keywords found on page 2, you should be looking at content that used to perform well, but no longer does. This is where the content audit comes into play.
Identifying content that was performing well 12 months ago, but has since started to lose traction, should ideally be part of a monthly process.
There are a number of reasons why these pages lose traction including:
- Yearly Content – e.g – Best Product of 20XX
- News led content – This can be time sensitive and doesn’t age well
- Skyscraper content – People trying to produce better content
So make sure that you are not just focused on adding new content, but you are looking at your existing assets and how they can be further improved.
Remove Irrelevant Content
As part of the content audit that you run to find underperforming content, you can identify content that is no longer relevant or needed.
The content that you should be looking for include:
- Time sensitive content
- Content that isn’t getting traction in the SEPRs (visibility)
- Content that isn’t providing any impressions/search traffic
- Content that hasn’t generated any links
As part of your auditing process you should be looking at these content types and the different metrics to determine whether the content is adding value to your users. Once you have made that decision, you either need to remove that content – 301 to most relevant or 410 to remove from the index – or you should be adding it to your list of content that needs improving.
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Each website will be different, so you need to look at your own property and determine which of the 5 quick win tips above will be your priority. In most cases, specifically if it’s a content heavy website, you are going to be focusing on improving content and improving your internal linking. Whereas, if you are a large eCommerce website you are likely to be focusing on fixing technical issues and ensuring search engines can get around your website through internal links.
