Ever wonder how some websites always top search results? The key is mastering SEO. It’s not just about keywords—it’s about building a site search engines love and users trust.
By following SEO best practices, you can significantly improve your rankings and attract more organic traffic. With the right approach, you can turn your website into a go-to resource for your target audience.
But that’s easier said than done. While there’s a lot you can do to improve your SEO, you need to prioritize the most crucial ones. In this article, we’ll discuss SEO best practices, and by the end, you’ll know the right changes to make to boost your ranking.
So read on to find out more.
Table of Contents
What are SEO Best Practices?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices are a set of techniques that can help improve your website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Implementing SEO best practices can increase your website’s visibility and drive more organic traffic.
The more visible your website is, the more likel
y you are to generate qualified leads that convert into customers. This is what makes SEO best practices vital for businesses.
Experienced SEO professionals know which SEO best practices to follow to get the best results and rank at the top of Google SERP.
And we all know how important that is. After all, research from Backlinko shows that the first organic search result is 10 times more likely to get clicked than the tenth. The same study suggests that only 0.63% of users get to the second page of search results.
Take a look at the CTR by search result position below.
Image via Backlinko
Clearly, optimizing your website and
following the SEO best practices delivers the desired results.
So, let’s go ahead and explore the top SEO best practices.
9 SEO Best Practices to Increase Traffic and Rankings
Now that you know what SEO best practices are, are you ready to learn some of the most effective ones?
Let’s explore 9 powerful SEO best practices you can utilize to boost your search engine rankings and traffic.
1. Conduct Regular Technical SEO Audits
We can’t discuss SEO best practices without mentioning auditing. A technical SEO audit is key to checking your website’s health—it looks at how search engines crawl, index, and rank your pages. It helps uncover any issues that might prevent your site from ranking in search results.
This audit covers site speed, mobile-friendliness, broken links, duplicate content, structured data, and more. It’s one of the SEO best practices that help your site perform better.
A good technical SEO audit includes the following steps:
- Check the site for broken links and errors that affect user experience.
- Test how fast pages load since slow sites can hurt rankings.
- Review the mobile version of the site because search engines rank mobile-friendly pages higher.
- Ensure search engines can index pages correctly. That means checking robots.txt, sitemaps, and canonical tags.
Conducting technical SEO audits is one of the SEO best practices, but they can be overwhelming to manage manually, especially for large websites. Fortunately, there are many affordable SEO audit tools to help streamline the process and save time.
Notable examples include Google Search Console, which identifies and automatically resolves some issues. There are also premium versions with advanced features, like Ahrefs and its alternatives.
Image via Ahrefs
2. Create High-Quality Relevant Content
What makes your website stand out from the crowd? The answer lies in creating content that provides value to your target audience.
But where do you start?
Here are some SEO best practices for creating high-quality, relevant content:
- Understand Your Audience: Learn your audience’s interests, needs, and pain points and create high-quality content that resonates with them.
- Stick to Google’s EAT Guidelines: EAT means Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Create content that demonstrates your expertise and authority in a subject and encourages readers to trust you. Use data and research to back your arguments and build trust.
- Use Relevant Keywords: Another SEO best practice is choosing the right keywords before incorporating them naturally into your content. Adding relevant keyword phrases makes your content more discoverable and boosts your search engine ranking.
- Leverage the Skyscraper Technique: This is one of the most effective SEO best practices where you look for content to improve to get backlinks. Read our skyscraper technique breakdown for more information on this.
Relevant content attracts users and encourages them to spend more time on your site. High engagement signals search engines that your content is valuable, boosting your SERP rankings.
3. Leverage Local SEO
Do you have a physical store or address? If you do, you can take advantage of local SEO tools and tactics to boost local search rankings.
Local SEO best practices help your site rank for search results for location-specific search queries and can increase foot traffic to your physical stores.
Here are some local SEO best practices to get you started.
- Claim and Optimize Your GMB Listing: Get your business listed on Google My Business (GMB). Ensure your business Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) information is accurate.
- Use Local Keywords: Identify location-specific keywords relevant to your business and include them naturally in your website.
Here is an example of businesses that rank for the local keyword phrase “best restaurants in Los Angeles” on Google’s local pack.
Image via Google
Website owners that use specific local keywords have a higher chance of ranking than those that use generic keywords.
- Get Customer Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews. Many positive reviews can attract more clicks, signaling to search engines that your business is relevant to local consumers.
Pro Tip: Utilize GMB features like photos, insights, and Q&A to enrich your listing and enhance your local presence.
4. Focus on Link Quality Over Quantity
We all know that backlinks are great for SEO.
However, not all backlinks and internal links produce significant results. The key to nailing down SEO best practices is knowing how and where to incorporate your links. But how do you do it?
Check out these external and internal linking best practices.
- Prioritize Relevance: Link both internally and externally to relevant content. Doing so, helps users discover more information on topics they are interested in, ultimately boosting search engine rankings.
- Use Internal Linking Tools: Leverage the best internal linking tools like LinkStorm to manage and optimize internal links on your website. Such tools provide insights into the link structure and help you optimize anchor texts.
- Get Links from Authoritative Sources: Earn backlinks from authoritative websites by posting high-quality link-worthy content and guest posting. Acquiring backlinks from authoritative sources builds your website’s credibility and authority.
5. Create Captivating Meta Descriptions and Title Tags
Meta descriptions and title tags are the first elements that hook users to your content. They can make or break your SEO efforts, and it’s one of the SEO best practices you shouldn’t overlook. To ensure a reader clicks through to your website, your title tags and meta descriptions need to be compelling enough.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
Title Tags
Title tags or page titles appear as clickable headlines on search results. One of the SEO best practices you should follow is to use title tags to encourage readers to click on your SERP result and visit your website.
Here is how page titles appear on search engines.
Image via Google
Here are some SEO best practices you can follow when adding meta titles.
- Front-load your target keyword
- Ensure the title tag accurately reflects the content on the web page
- Avoid using duplicate titles for multiple pages
- Refrain from keyword stuffing
Meta Descriptions
These are summaries that provide a snapshot of a page’s content and are crucial SEO best practices you need to implement. While they may not be a direct ranking factor, they can convince users to click on your SERP listing and visit your website.
Here is how they appear on search results.
Image via Google
Here are some practices you can follow to optimize your meta descriptions:
- Craft unique descriptions for each page
- Keep the description concise
- Incorporate target keywords or phrases
- Address search intent
- Keep it short, typically between 150 and 160 characters
6. Optimize Images
Optimizing images is one of the best SEO best practices that helps search engines understand your content better. While visual content is crucial, large unoptimized images can slow down your website and affect user experience.
So how can you still use images while improving user experience? Here are some SEO best practices you can follow:
- Add Image Alt Text: An alt text, is a description added to a HTML code to explain what an image is all about. Adding alt text or alt tags allows you to provide more context to search engines about images.
- Compress Images: Large image files can affect your site’s loading speed. Use a good image compression tool to reduce image file sizes without compromising on quality.
- Choose the Right Image Format: Use the appropriate image format. JPEG is ideal for photographs while PNG is suitable for images with more information.
- Enable Lazy Loading: Lazy loading makes images load only when a user scrolls to them. This speeds up your site and improves SEO.
- Resize Images: Optimizing images is an essential SEO best practice to improve page load speed and user experience. Optimized image sizes reduce bounce rates and help search engines better index your content.
7. Keep an Eye on Your Website’s Loading Speed
How fast does your site load? If it’s not less than 3 seconds, that’s a problem.
Improving website load speeds is one of the top SEO best practices that ensures a site loads as fast as possible without adding wait time for visitors. Faster websites give people a better experience and keep them engaged.
A study by Bidnamic shows that a website that loads in 3 seconds has a 2.55% conversion rate, while those that take 7 seconds see a drop to just 1.5%. A slow-loading website can frustrate users and cause them to leave. This sends a signal to search engines that users are not finding your site useful.
Image via Bidnamic
Here are several tips to help you optimize your site’s loading speed.
- Use Tools to Check Site Speed: Utilize tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse to optimize your website’s loading speed. These tools also help you identify issues and provide solutions to continually enhance user experience.
PageSpeed Insights allows you to analyze your website’s speed and overall health. It also provides useful insights into improving your website’s loading speed.
Image via PageSpeed Insights
Image via PageSpeed Insights
- Optimize Images: As addressed earlier, images can make your website lag. Use the previously mentioned tips to optimize images and improve website speed.
- Minimize HTTP Requests: Each page loads files like scripts, images, and style sheets. Reducing these speeds up the site.
- Use Browser Caching: Caching saves website data on a visitor’s device. This makes pages load faster when they return.
- Choose a Fast Host: Cheap hosting can slow down a site. Wheareas, a good host improves speed and boosts SEO.
8. Optimize your Site for Mobile Devices
According to Statista, almost half of website traffic globally comes from mobile devices. Mobile devices generated about 61.85% of worldwide website traffic in the fourth quarter of 2024.
What does this tell you?
Optimizing your website is no longer an option but a necessity.
Here are some SEO best practices to make your website mobile-friendly.
- Use a Responsive Design: Use a responsive website design to create a layout that adapts to a user’s device screen. A responsive design ensures a consistent user-friendly experience across different devices.
- Utilize Mobile-Friendly Navigation: Simplify your website’s navigation for smaller screens to make it easy for users to find what they need.
- Use Legible Font Sizes: If a user can’t read your content, they will simply leave your site. Use a legible font size to ensure your content is easy to read on mobile devices.
9. Improve User Experience
Most mobile phone users abandon a website when it takes too long to load. Additionally, most consumers will abandon their carts if the checkout process is too complex.
A good user experience allows website visitors to seamlessly engage with your content. Furthermore, it signals search engines that your website is trustworthy, which helps improve SERP rankings.
Here are some SEO best practices to improve your site’s user experience.
- Use White Space: Incorporate white space strategically into your website design. White space reduces visual clutter, making your pages look neat. Consider the spacing between paragraphs, images, and buttons.
- Minimize Pop-Ups: Pop-ups can be very annoying. Limit your pop-ups, especially those that appear immediately after a page loads or obstruct content.
- Use Simple Navigation: Employ an easy-to-use website structure. Use clear menus and logical page hierarchies to help your website visitors find information easily.
- Add Clear Calls-to-Action: Use clear and compelling CTAs to guide users to the desired actions like signing up or contacting you.
Pro Tip: You can utilize LinkStorm to seamlessly link related pages and simplify navigation.
FAQ
Q1. What are the SEO best practices to improve website rankings?
A. Here are 9 search engine optimization best practices you can use to improve your website’s ranking.
- Conducting regular technical SEO audits
- Create high-quality content
- Leverage local SEO
- Focus on getting quality links
- Create eye-catching meta descriptions and title tags
- Optimize images
- Improve your website’s loading speed
- Optimize your website for mobile phones
- Improve user experience
Q2. Is SEO still worth it in 2025?
A. Yes. SEO is still worthwhile. It helps improve your site’s visibility, attract organic traffic, and boost credibility.
Q3. How does Google know how to rank a page?
A. Google uses search engine crawlers and complex algorithms to analyze several factors and rank a page. Some of these factors include content quality and relevance, backlinks, user experience, keywords, and more.
Q4. What are some best practices for on-page SEO?
A. Here are some of the important on-page SEO best practices.
- Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
- Use header tags to structure content
- Add alt text for images
- Prioritize user-friendly content
Q5. What is an SEO strategy?
A. An SEO strategy is a detailed plan outlining techniques for improving a website’s visibility on search engine results pages. It involves using SEO best practices to rank higher and get more clicks.
Some of these SEO best practices include technical SEO audits, crafting quality content, improving local SEO, optimizing images, and elevating page speeds, among others.
Ready to Boost Your Organic Rankings and Traffic?
And there you have it. Now you are equipped with 9 crucial SEO best practices to follow.
Embracing these SEO best practices is just a starting point for increasing organic traffic and search rankings. Implementing search engine optimization practices is a continuous process that requires a commitment to providing value to your audience.
By aligning your strategies with user intent, creating quality content, and using an internal linking tool, you can boost your SEO efforts. Good luck!
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