5 Overlooked SEO Techniques That Really Matter

SEO techniques keep changing in today’s rapidly shifting world, and most people may not be aware of it.

The hacks that worked magic a year ago aren’t just obsolete today, but they also could hurt your site’s search engine rankings, especially if they come with a penalty from Google.

It’s important to stay updated in SEO just so you don’t lag behind while the competition outperforms you in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

There are several SEO techniques that are being used today to help website owners and marketers skyrocket their rankings while boosting their organic traffic.

In fact, a State of SEO survey by Zazzle Media revealed that 88% of marketers believe SEO is an important element of their marketing plans and extremely important in the success of their marketing operations.

However, there still are some commonly ignored SEO techniques that in fact matter today and in the future.

How Google Rankings Work

As people go online to search for information they type in or say words that relate to what they want to find.

These are called keywords, and they often help populate the best search results, but they aren’t the only thing that determines whether your site will rank on Page 1 or not.

Search engine rankings also look at the quality of the information on the site, checking factors such as the purpose of the page, authority, expertise and trustworthiness of the author and content.

It also considers the quality and amount of content and information about the website and the authors or content creators as well as their reputation.

Based on these factors, the search engine will serve up the most relevant, high-quality results first, and the rest appears over successive pages.

There’s no guarantee of ranking on Page 1, though.

Because of the complicated nature of SEO, many website owners and marketers choose to stick to the rules they understand while crafting their strategies around them.

This means they’ll overlook other ranking factors and end up frustrated while their pages fail to rank on search engines because Google’s algorithm keeps changing its ranking factors every two years.

We searched for the often-overlooked SEO tactics that still matter today, and below is an overview of our findings:

Checking Off-Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

This is an important element in maximizing your SEO efforts regardless of the size of your business or website or the size of your budget.

Optimizing your page titles and meta descriptions doesn’t require advanced expertise, but it does contribute to higher click-through rates from search engine results.

Optimizing for the Correct Keywords

When it comes to SEO, companies tend to over-invest and focus mostly on keywords, which are an important part of the process.

However, they overlook keyword optimization for the correct keywords, which can make or break their efforts.

Instead of targeting, focusing on and investing in high-volume keywords, make a list of as many keywords and phrases you feel describe your site or business.

Many people are likely searching for those exact words, and you may have a harder time ranking as one of the top results because of the high search volume.

Solid, Quality Content

Content is an SEO fundamental that’s often under-invested in because people are looking for gimmicks to make Google like their content more.

Instead, you need to create solid, quality content that also references the rest of the content on your site. This not only gives the search engines more information about what you’re an expert in, but it also helps your site rank for more related terms and for the initial keyword you wanted.

Create more quality content instead of trying to chase white-hat backlinks or reformatting content, and focus on terms where you rank relatively well.

Building Links

This is a boring and difficult task, so most people don’t bother with it. However, backlinks correlate with content ranking opposed to making your site look nice, producing content or promoting your brand on social media.

Backlinks help search engines discover your site. Otherwise you’d not be known or found.

It’s easy to overlook them because of the tedious nature of building them, but you should be building backlinks all the time.

Most companies hire agencies or carry out link building campaigns for some time.

In fact, a 2019 SEO Services report by Backlinko revealed that American small businesses spend an average of $497.16 per month with SEO agencies for SEO services.

However, after the link building period ends, they stop working for links altogether.

Keep looking for new quality link opportunities. You can do this through guest posting or even replying to opportunities through HARO that can help your site be positioned as an authority, get indexed and show up well in the SERPs.

Providing Data for Images

Images are a clever way of bringing people to your page. Many sites fail to implement the image SEO tactic by leaving out data about the images.

While image searches aren’t used as much as the classic web searches, it’s easy to optimize them and rank higher than the competition or other sites that haven’t given images much attention.

Similarly, creating unique images or designs can be a rich source of new clients, especially for industries that rely on them.

It may be a tedious task to name your images for the keywords you want to rank for, but it’ll be rewarding later on in terms of rankings.

Use the alt tag to put your keyword in the image’s name, and search engines will make it extra find-able whether through image or normal web search.

It could give you the edge you’re looking for.

Be sure to use relevant images, as the search engines look at the image content and that of your page to see if there’s a match.

Add image captions as search engines index these, too. It can be a compelling call-to-action (CTA) linked to your checkout page and presented as people hover over images, thus increasing engagement.

Conclusion

SEO’s basic premise is building authority and links to rank well in SERPs.

However, it’s easy to get lost in today’s ever-changing SEO techniques and overlook the basics and foundational principles.

The combined value of these five overlooked SEO techniques can affect your overall rankings profoundly.