The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is frequently changing and evolving, especially since Google regularly makes updates to its algorithms.

However, while many SEO tactics change often, there are some that are more timeless than others. If you are new to SEO, you may be wondering what areas are more worthwhile to focus on that may be less likely to change than others. Here are some SEO tactics that never go out of style.

Do not try to cheat the system

When your site is not doing well in the rankings, maybe it is on page two or three, you might be tempted to try to cheat the system. These tricks can include buying links, spam links on other websites, or trying to trick search engines or visitors with redirects. This might work in the short term, but eventually, the search engines will figure it out, and it will hurt your rankings even more.

It takes time for anyone to start seeing results from their SEO tactics, which is why sometimes it might be tempting to try to cheat the system to get a little boost while you wait for the real SEO you have invested into your site to begin to work. The problem is that even if you use legitimate tactics too, once you have hurt your rankings with illegitimate tactics, it can be harder to move back up in the rankings later on.

Quality over quantity

Never compromise the quality of the content on your site. Write the best content you can and update or improve it when necessary. While some may choose to simply create as much content as possible to get keywords added to their site quickly, you might be sacrificing quality if you are focused on the quantity. If you are newer to your field, you might feel like you need to be flooding your site with content to catch up to the competition, but this means you might not be as focused on the quality of what you are sharing.

Keep in mind that your competition is also sharing content on similar subjects, so yours needs to be better than theirs to help you get above them in search engine results. Your content needs to show people and search engines your expertise to help you stand out among the crowd. This is an investment that will require time and effort, but it is one that will pay off over time. It is another part of SEO that will take time to pay off, but it is worth it in the end.

Keep the audience in mind

No matter what your business or industry is, when you are creating content for your site, always keep your audience in mind. Your content should be focused on what your audience needs and to make it a resource they can find and enjoy. Keywords and search intent are important, so thinking about the search intent of them and how that is linked to the keywords you are using is important. What is someone looking for when they search for the keywords you are using?  Are they searching for information or tips to take an action? How do you fit into their needs? When you work on optimizing your website, this is something that is important to keep in mind.

You will always have competition in your industry, so making sure that you are filling your audience’s needs and how to solve their problem is crucial to helping you with the search engine rankings.

Increase site speed

In the digital world, speed matters to visitors and search engines. If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, your position in the search engine results can be hurt. Take the time to invest in your site speed and keep it moving quickly. There are a number of things you can do to improve site speed, including technical SEO and using a caching plugin, which can help boost the load times, especially for returning visitors.

Image size is another thing that can interfere with your loading times. While you want quality images on your site, you can often get away with using a lower resolution image that will not bog down your load time. Image optimization plugins can help you with this and give you guidelines to resize your images.

Optimize your internal linking

Your internal linking structure helps search engines when they crawl your site to determine where you should fall in the results. This is why it is important to optimize your internal linking and ensure that your site has a completely relevant link structure and your more important posts or pages have internal links pointing to them.

Keep your content maintained

Maintaining your content is another SEO tactic that will never go out of style. This is not a task many people enjoy, but it pays off. Take the time to search through your keywords to ensure you are not using the same keywords on multiple pages; this can confuse Google and might lead to each page with those keywords being ranked lower.

If you have articles that are similar, which is bound to happen occasionally, you can delete or merge them, so you only have one page, but make sure you leave a redirect for the old URL, so no one gets a 404 error from the old page.

You might have some content that needs to be updated as times and technologies change to ensure it all stays relevant to what is currently happening in your industry. Ensure that you make a note that you updated the content and the date that you added it so people can see that it has been updated recently. If you have content that is outdated but there is no real way to update it, you can redirect it to the most similar page on your site and delete it; this will look better to search engines and people visiting your site.

Final thoughts

These SEO tips have stayed important through the many Google algorithm updates that happen, so they are a good place to start with your SEO. It is a lot of work to keep everything optimized, which is why it is always a good idea to work with the SEO experts at Seattle Public Relations. Contact us today to get started optimizing your site.