Every blog owner's main goal is to get to the top of the search engine. The ranking is critical in driving organic traffic to the website. When searching for something online, people tend to click on the top searches. They probably don't even bother to move to the next pages. This is why SEO is crucial for any website.

Here are five proven practices that you should consider when optimising your website for the search engines:

1. Provide unique content

In the past, Google was interested in keywords when ranking websites but this trend has recently changed. Google is now concerned with the relevance of the information in the sites and how informative the content is to the users. Google is now focusing on the needs of its users to retain its credibility.

When one searches for information on Google and gets irrelevant or poorly-written content from the top-ranking sites, they communicate this to Google. This is why Google is weeding out irrelevant websites that have little to offer to users.

If you want to be competitive, make sure that your content is relevant and unique. Repeating information that has already flooded the internet will pull you to the bottom page. Do your research and write informative and unique content.

2. Have strong link building

Any honest SEO agent will admit that link building is one of the most difficult SEO factors, but its is one of the most rewarding. The web crawlers and online users use links to navigate the internet.

Links are like a vote of confidence in the search engine world. The more authoritative your links are, the better your chances of ranking high. Search engines use links to interrelate pages and information.

Links have four basic parts:
  1. Start of the link — this is referred to as an anchor tag and it informs the search engine of the presence of a link.
  2. Location — the location points to the URL of the location that the link is supposed to navigate. A link can point to a website, an image or a file.
  3. Anchor text — this is generally highlighted and clickable text on a website with a phrase like "Click me." It is the anchor text and is what is visible to the user. 
  4. Closure tag — this is the tag that marks the end of the link.
Once you have built a strong link, get authoritative sites to link back to your site. Do not look for backlinking from low-ranking and penalized sites or you could end up like them.

3. Implement a variety of keywords 

A keyword is a word that users are most likely to type when looking for a specific product or information. In the past, SEO was about putting as many keywords as possible in the content. This practice will now attract severe penalties from Google. Keyword stuffing is fatal for your website.

The safest way to use keywords is by using a variety of keyword phrases that are relevant to your content. The reason why to use variety of keywords is to make your content look and sound natural.

The secret is in keyword research. You have to find out what words and phrases people are typing the most and use them to direct traffic your way.

4. Ensure easy navigation on your website 

People are very busy and this makes them impatient. Your website might have the best content but if people are having a hard time navigating through the pages, they will not stay for long. People are comfortable with sites that allow them to move back and forth with quickly and easily. 

Ensure that your website is crawlable and search engine-friendly. Do not use complicated interfaces to make your site look cool; this could work to your disadvantage. Use strong and visible local links on your site. Ensure that your site's loading speed is less than four seconds.

5. Domain Rank

Domain authority checkers have made it easy for website owners to gauge their chances of ranking high on search engines. A high-ranking domain means more traffic to your site. There are many factors that influence domain ranking. You can use backlinks, onsite and offsite SEO to gauge the authority of a domain.

A new domain ranks at zero, while an experienced domain is likely to rank higher. The domain authority checkers rank the sites out of 100. With a combination of the right SEO practices, any domain can rank high on the search engines.

SEO evolves all the time and it is in your best interest to keep tabs with the latest changes. You do not want to be left behind by your competitors for your lack of current information.

For more information, visit www.mikekhorev.com.