Search engine optimization (SEO) is the best ally of website owners and web visitors alike. When done right SEO provides a better user experience, facilitates lead generation, higher conversion rates, builds brand credibility and encourages users to visit physical stores, among other benefits.

But it is not practical to think that all SEO specialists are alike. There are some that can make errors along the way, thus, it is always vital to check the credentials of the SEO specialist or consultant you want to hire and request proof of their performance and expertise.

What does an SEO specialist accomplish?

At the most basic, the search engine optimization specialist improves the ranking of a website on search engines that matter, by increasing its visibility, which improves traffic that could result in more sales. It improves brand credibility and increases website exposure, too.

If you are new to digital marketing, SEO might be a bit confusing. But you can relax since you can look for an SEO specialist or work with a company that provides a range of SEO-related services.

How to make your SEO strategies more effective

A site owner has to create various strategies to ensure that the company moves forward and reach its short-term and long-term goals. A company’s strategies should include aggressive plans for brand and product marketing, which should be prominent features in corporate SEO strategies. Since a website is the company’s face online, it should ensure that all the requirements to keep visitors’ interest so they will continue to explore the site must be in place.

According to experts, companies should review and update their corporate SEO strategies every six months. The major search engines are always making changes to their algorithms to ensure that websites cannot use unfair methods to improve their rankings. Advances in technology likewise affect SEO practices and SEO strategies.

Google, for one, typically releases a lengthy guide to SEO each year. The specialist also has to ensure that the organic search strategies – on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO are always optimized, according to the guidelines of the different search engines.

Best practices for corporate SEO in 2021

Given the dynamism of search engine optimization, it is vital for site owners to know and understand the best practices for SEO in 2021. With the changes in algorithms, your site should have regular updates as well.

So, let’s explore the best practices for corporate SEO this year, which will keep your site optimized.

1. Schedule SEO audits regularly

A website’s performance in the search engine results page (SERP) depends on multiple factors the SEO expert use to optimize it. Thus, it is vital to have at least an annual SEO audit. The audit consists of various steps, such as:

• Technical audit with a site-crawler
• Check what pages search engines indexed
• Review friendliness of site with mobile devices
• Test how fast the site loads
• Analysis of the behavior of onsite users
• Re-check site audience and your personas
• Content strategy audit
• Keyword search
• Check link profile
• Review internal linking and backlink strategies

Other things you have to check are the security of your domain, especially if you require users to submit personal and financial information. Likewise, an SEO audit can show you if there are topic gaps in your content. The gap may include related topics that you have not covered or topics where competition outranks you.

With a keyword search, you’ll be able to determine the popularity of keywords you and your competitors use.

1. Update your content strategy

When it comes to content strategy, you have to be flexible. You are going to gather more data by creating more content. When you have a variety of topics related to your business, the more opportunity you will have to do site optimization.

If you have a content strategy, you will have an in-depth look at our content goals and your plan to reach them. Whatever type of content you create, your strategy must include:

• Target personas
• Creation process
• Projects
• Tactics
• Key performance indicators or KPIs

As part of your SEO strategies, you should have a plan on how you will publish your content. It will help to have a content creation checklist so that you can optimize each item and keep it consistent before publication.

To ensure optimization, your content should include title tags, subheadings, meta descriptions, and external and internal links. Images should have alt text. You also ensure that the paragraphs and sentences are easy to understand.

1. Implement video marketing

Video marketing is fast becoming another tool to boost engagement and increase page time. As always, it should also be optimized. Another thing you should give careful consideration is voice search, which started trending in 2020 and is expected to continue its upward trend until 2024.

1. Optimize for mobile devices

More people are using mobile devices. Thus, make sure that the website is optimized to get ready for mobile-first indexing that Google plans to enable in April 2021.

1. Improve web page loading time

The speed of web page loading is one of the complaints of web users, and this is one of the priority concerns of corporate SEO. It is going to be part of the Core Web Vitals ranking that Google will release in 2021. It is important to ensure that you minimize the file size of materials containing videos and images, compress them if necessary, and enable browser caching.

1. Provide incentives to your visitors

Make sure that you include good visuals to catch the eyes of readers. It is essential to monitor reviews so you can quickly address negative comments.

1. Own and manage backlinks

One of the best SEO practices is owning and managing backlinks. Your site’s performance in generating backlinks should be at par or steps ahead of the competition. Since sites that backlink to you may also backlink to your competition, aside from optimizing your content, see to that you put more emphasis on personalization through focusing on the value you offer and building relationships with the legitimate businesses that link to your site.

The online environment is noisy, as competition remains fierce. Undoubtedly, it becomes a fertile ground where the skills of an SEO expert can ensure a site and brand success.