The Dos & Don’ts of SEO for 2021

Find out what to do and not to do when it comes to SEO to help improve your organic traffic and engagement rates.

Did you know, 75% of users don’t scroll past the first page of search results? If your website isn’t optimised for SEO, and not appearing in those top ranking positions, then chances are you are missing out on a bundle of potential customers to your website.   

If implemented correctly SEO can be exceedingly useful in not only improving your rankings but also making it easier for your consumers to find you. However, if carried out incorrectly it can have the opposite effect, as search bots may bypass your site.

In this post we will discuss the dos and don’ts of SEO for 2021.

DO: Carry out thorough SEO keyword research before you start

This is an important step to improve your SEO in 2021. Rather than choosing keywords for your copy that you think may be the best for search engines, make to research if your audience will be using these search terms too.

This will give you an idea of how much competition you could be facing with these keywords and how likely you are to capture the market. Google Ads’ Keyword Planner is a fantastic tool to use to find search volumes for your keyword ideas.  

DO: Repeat your keyword more than once in the copy and variations of it

To ensure search bots and other tools pick up on your keywords make sure you repeat them throughout your copy. You can also use variants of the keyword to make your copy sound more natural.

DON’T: Saturate your copy with your keywords

However, make sure your chosen SEO keywords amount to no more than 5% of your copy. If you over saturate your copy not only will it sound unnatural, but search bots are likely to rank you lower down.

DON’T: Add your keywords in just for the sake of it

When you use your keywords, they should sound natural and shouldn’t stand out. If you can’t fit it in that sentence don’t just make up something to include it. Your reader will notice the copy sounding less fluid and you could lead to less engagement. Make sure your copy still flows and sounds natural.

DO: Include a compelling meta title and description for each piece of content

Make sure you include a meta title and description for each post to improve SEO in 2021.

These will greatly help with your rankings. The meta title and description is the text which will appear on the search results page so make sure it is enticing and includes your keywords.

DO: Include alt text for images

This is another important tip to improve your SEO in 2021. For each image you add to your site, ensure you write the alt text for these. This is the writing which will appear should the image not load. This is useful for many ways and not simply SEO.

Alt attributes are vital to improving the accessibility of your website as it will be useful for users who make use of text to speech functions. Also, this text will be analysed by search bots so could also help improve your rankings.

DON’T: Use lots of keywords on one page

The more keywords you use for a page the more likely search bots will become confused and overlook your page when it comes to rankings. Make sure you only choose a few keywords for each page and ensure they are relevant to the content.

There are many more hints and tips, but these are our top dos and don’ts to improve SEO 2021 edition. If you want to receive more traffic through organic searches, your SEO must be the best it can be so that search bots place you high up on the search results pages.

With over 12 years of experience, we are experts at SEO and all that comes with it. We know what it takes to improve your rankings and have helped many clients improve their engagement and organic traffic.

Contact us today to find out how we can help improve your ranking and SEO.