tp 7 seo tactics for 2019

While the techniques and tactics may have changed over the years, the aim of search engine optimization has always been the same—to increase your online visibility.

Now that it’s 2019, the ways that get you there are a bit different now. Here are seven of the most important ones you’ll have to make use of in order to get your SEO in check this year.

Add Breadcrumbs to Your Pages

Whether you have an ecommerce website or not, adding breadcrumbs to your website can be quite beneficial. It can add structure that creates better organization within your website.

Most posts, especially product pages in ecommerce sites, tend to be linked to category pages. These category pages provide some value to those product pages, thus making them better. However, if you want them to rank high, you can implement breadcrumbs to really consolidate that strength.

Breadcrumbs have those category pages linked with all subcategory pages and posts related to them. This process is made easier through a CMS like WordPress, wherein breadcrumbs can be implemented through a plugin or module. Otherwise, it will require some extensive coding.

Invest in Technical SEO

With websites becoming more and more internally complex all the time, ironing out one’s technical SEO has become very important. Think of it as housekeeping, with its maintenance ensuring one’s continued success in SEO for 2019 and beyond.

Some of the aspects of technical SEO you should take care of include page loading speed, JavaScript, and progressive web apps (PWAs).

Of course, websites that load quickly tend to be ranked better in search engines, so that’s crucial in SEO. One of the things that can make it load slower is excessive JavaScript, which is in itself necessary as you use more applications that are built on it.

If you do continue to develop your website to be more functional over time, you should then consider how it can be a PWA itself in the future. You must plan out how your website can become so useful as to even become indispensable over time.

Structured Data Markup

You will want to use structured data on your website whenever possible. With the growing importance of AI, especially for Google, structured data will become more of a staple.

If they ever start implementing AI to fully regulate SEO on Google, having structured data is what will let your website be useful enough to that AI. Structured data lets AI look through your website quickly, thus processing your content with less hindrance.

Using structured data markup is future-proofing for your website, leveraging your existing content to be usable by future applications—useful features like voice search—that may come sooner than you think.

Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search makes a lot of use of AI, which is certainly going to get a lot more use in the future. Around half of all people on Google don’t even type their queries anymore, using voice recognition to do it for them.

Therefore, if you don’t want your website to miss the boat that is voice search, then you should optimize for it. Aside from structured data markup, you should also write content around long-tail keywords since voice search queries tend to make more use of them as they’re more question-based.

Therefore, you should write content as if you’re answering a question. Find those frequently-asked questions and provide detailed answers for them through articles.

Install an SSL Certificate

SSL has become a major factor in search rankings since 2014, and for good reason. Having an SSL installed ensures that your website is safe for users, so having one in yours is always a good idea.

Installing an SSL in your website should be easy enough. If you don’t have money for an SSL certificate, you can just use CloudFlare. Have your domain’s nameservers point to CloudFlare and it should then act as your SSL. It’ll block spam and bad IPs from reaching your website.

Do take note that migrating to HTTPS may cause some serious SEO issues, so make sure to change from HTTP to HTTPS domain in whatever needs it, including Google Search Console and other similar services.

Focus on Topic Clusters Instead of Keywords

As Google’s algorithm continues to change, we already know that it has never been just about keywords for the longest time. However, that keyword-centric mentality has always pervaded SEO thinking, which is why we must remind ourselves again to change that for 2019.

Instead of just focusing on just keywords, you should be making content based on clusters of topics that fit certain themes. The topic cluster model was created by HubSpot to break big topics down into sub-topics that can then yield a whole slew of content.

Repurpose Existing Content

Not only do you breathe new life to old content by remarketing it to a newer audience, but you can also update it, add new information, and put it up in a different format or medium.

Whether you expand on it and turn it into an ebook, a video, or a podcast; do a simple update and re-share it in an opportune time; or so on, repurposing existing content is not lazy as it actually takes more work to do.

You can even just dig it up and share it on social media as a throwback or a reference to something relevant. Just because it’s old, doesn’t mean people can no longer find it useful or entertaining.

There is a lot of room for experimentation in this one, so be sure to open your mind for the possibilities with your older content. It can actually do wonders for your SEO and ongoing relevance.