SEO 2019 Best Practices

Mateo Alessio

Mateo Alessio is a Digital Marketing Specialist focused on Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), he is really keen about results with a data-driven profile. Currently working at Alexanders Digital Marketing as a Digital Marketing Specialist.

All,SEO and Content |

May 24, 2019

We’re having a really busy 2019, Google is constantly updating the algorithms and we had a big core algorithm update on 12 March 2019. Everybody notes a big ranking fluctuation during this period.

In this article, we are going to analyze 4 good signals to help your ranks after this algorithm update.

Before starting with this, I want to clarify there are at least 200 factors that determine your ranks, the objective of this article is to review 4 important signals that I consider can drastically help your search visibility.

Speed Performance

The faster, the better. Page speed has become one of the biggest ranks factors, I recommend using Google PageSpeed Insights tool to analyze your site and optimize the speed.

Speed optimization is really time-consuming and you will need help from your developer, having a holistic approach is key to achieving your speed goals.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is the best alternative to improve mobile speed and experience; I’d recommend this option for a big news website or a content-oriented site, keep in mind that AMP development is really expensive.

Content Quality (Quality Rater Guidelines)

Google is hitting really hard to low quality and poor content websites, and this is not new, Google has been prioritising good content for years; in saying that, it’s really good practice to review the Content Quality Google document.

It’s more than 130 pages long but is really helpful at helping you understand what Google considers low or high-quality content. Pay special attention to the Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness (E-A-T) section.

You can start with these short recommendations to improve your content quality.

Structure your content in an easy/friendly way to read.

Make sure your main keyword is included in the title, description, and headers.

Include semantic keywords to support your content.

Create useful content, remember that you are writing for your users, not for the bots.

Search Intent

It’s fundamental to formulate your content around the search intent of your keywords, this sounds basic but is one of the most common mistakes made when optimizing your website.

There are 3 basic types of keyword intent:

Navigational: Intent to search for a particular site, for example, Google, Facebook, Moz.

Informational: Intent to get particular information assuming that the information is going to be displayed on the page, for example, “Brand or model” shoe reviews, “John Doe” Hotel prices.

Transactional: Clear transactional intent, for example “Brand or model + shoe”, book “Jhon Doe” Hotel online, subscribe to X.

Be sure that your page is optimized to match the intent of your keywords based on this basic intent structure.

Mobile UX

At this point there is no denying that mobile experience is a massive factor to consider, especially when you look at the mobile first algorithms introduced in March, 2018. Google updated the indexing process so your rank is going to directly influenced by the performance of your site on mobile devices.

This is even supported by the new Google Search Console, where you can analyze if there is any problem with your mobile experience.

I think this is part of the evolution of the users, by 2020, 70% of web traffic worldwide is going to be on mobile devices, especially for B2B services. So it makes sense that rankings will prioritize sites with good mobile user experience. You can audit your site using Google Lighthouse, a free tool which gives you great insights about your mobile or desktop performance.

If you have the resources, a Web-App is an amazing solution.

I hope you enjoyed reading! Remember that SEO is a holistic process and it takes a lot of time to increase your search visibility, please me know your thoughts and questions in the comment box below.