The Latest SEO Tips and Tactics – 2012

What’s hot now in SEO

Experts gathered this past month to share best practices for SEO.  Here’s a distillation of what they said:

SEO Tips and Tactics:

• SEO takes time – don’t expect immediate results.
• Quality is truly king.  Don’t chase Penguin changes or try to “fool” Google - solid content will protect you against algorithm updates.
• Create good content – the best kind of content is the kind people want to read, or content that adds to the conversation of what people are currently  reading.
• Add pictures – both SEO and your audience respond more favorably which helps SEO.
• Supporting causes  can help create engagement/conversations which SEO values.
• Drill down to get VERY specific – for example: make, model, year, color of a car, favorite options, is better than just talking “BMW” for SEO rankings.
• Search engines value reviews – encourage your clients and supporters to make legitimate reviews.
•  Write testimonials for companies you’ve had happy dealings with and who give links for testimonials.
• The algorithm updates to watch out for are those that affect display on SERPs because they’ll affect your business and your pocket.
• Keyword research and Google Analytics continue to matter – set yourself up and continuously monitor and adjust based on feedback from analytics.  Use PPC (pay per click) research tools  to test your keywords (see what Melissa Mackay wrote about Keyword  Research Tools).
• Local and mobile are big for search: 30% of all searches are local, and 50% of those are mobile.  Adapt your URLs for local.
• Remember to use internal links to point at your local pages.
• Use Tweetarchivist to find linking opportunities.
• Keep in mind real-world networking is critical – always look for opportunities to build relationships.
• Use tools like Topsy - to find who’s tweeting about topics that interest you and/or to see who’s retweeted your competitor’s top links (you’ll also be able to find out what else they tweet and who their influencers are).

For more details, check out Wordtracker’s full list of SEO tips from the Distilled’s SearchLove London Conference 2012.