Anyone who has worked in the world of SEO for a while will have experienced a search engine penalty. A combination of algorithm updates and manual reviews can see a page or entire website demoted from a high-ranking position.

In some cases, sites can be removed from the index entirely, but it is more common to find a loss of ranking leading to a significant decrease in traffic.

Fear of a penalty can sometimes lead to inaction, preventing a site from achieving the rankings the content may deserve. There are, however, some techniques favored by Google and the other search engines, ensuring you can rank without fear.

Create Content for Visitors

Not too long ago, site owners faced a balancing act of producing content to suit visitors and the search engines. Keywords were often stuffed into material trying to appear natural but were only there for ranking.

Search engines can understand content far better now, so it is more important to create content for visitors. Consider what visitors require from a search query and create content to satisfy this need.

Focus on Performance

The performance of a website has become far more critical over the years. Search engines want to give the best experience to users, but various factors can prevent this.

Site speed is a common issue, with slow loading time consistently rated as a major frustration for users. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool assesses a website’s performance and offer suggestions on how to optimize it.

Broken links and poor navigation also lead to negative experiences, with many larger sites suffering as new content gets added. This problem is easy to fix with a broken link checker, which scans an entire site for 404 errors (and other link failures) and gives a comprehensive report.

Build a Mobile-Friendly Site

Google has changed to a “mobile-first index”. This type of indexing involves crawling the mobile version of your website. Sites without a mobile version can still be indexed, but they will likely suffer as a result of the poor experience given to a large proportion of mobile users.

Developing a responsive website can solve most problems, creating a site that works across all devices. It is essential to check it in the Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool, while also looking at it via several different devices.

Use Structured Data

Structured data is a useful way to help the search engines understand and present your content. Structured data can show name, address, and phone number details to users while adding eye-catching features like star reviews. You can also use this data markup to categorize content, marking elements as recipes, events, products, and more.

Effective use of structured data can see your content appearing as rich snippets for relevant searches, leading to traffic from users who see your information at the top of the page.

Consider On-Page Optimization Fundamentals

While structured data makes it easier for search engines, you don’t need to go overboard with other on-page factors. Excessive use of keywords and unnatural language could lead to problems, so focus on natural content and the overall user experience.

Using simple title tags and meta descriptions, though, can be useful as they encourage searchers to click through to your site. There are no guarantees that Google will use these tags, but they occur often enough to make it part of your content routine.

Conclusion

The benefits of ranking your website for relevant keywords are clear, but the process can feel vague. In the past, manipulating the search engines could provide some long-term rankings. However, most of these strategies no longer work, potentially even leading to penalties.

Using the techniques above, though, it is possible to satisfy the search engines and provide a quality user experience for visitors.

SEO is still one of the best opportunities for gaining targeted traffic, so it is worth spending the time to give the search engines with the things they are seeking.