Search Engine Optimization is anything but fixed and search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to deliver the most credible, relevant results to consumers.

SEO best practices come and go and many SEO tactics that are white hat today turn negative when overused.

This can be extremely frustrating for website owners and you could even be left wondering if it is even worth the effort or the investment. Some SEO practices aren’t even going to be relevant in a few years or even months.

There is no predicting what Google will put into their calculations. There will always be new criteria being introduced into the search algorithms and businesses must adapt to these trends to stay on top of the rankings.

While it is impossible to predict what Google has in store, we can tell you that certain SEO tactics will always add value and will never go out of favor.

The following SEO practices will always add value to your SEO strategies:

Publish Authoritative Content

Content marketing is an incredibly important part of your online marketing strategy. But content marketing has a much bigger role in your overall marketing plan. Relevant content that informs your audience and educates your customers keeps you in front of them as an authority and leader.

From an SEO standpoint, your content needs to be optimized using keywords that are conversational and specific. By researching keywords that your potential clients will use you are able to create content that is useful and relatable.

As you build your audience with valuable content you build trust and authority which encourages people to naturally link to your content and share it within their spheres of influence.

The ultimate goal of authoritative content is to empower your audience to take action and enable them to build on the information provided.

Content will always drive value.

Enhance the User Experience

Having great content on your site goes a long way to providing an experience that will engage your visitors. But if the site is poorly designed or the structure is difficult to navigate, it negates the purpose of great content for SEO purposes.

Users that have a great experience on your website stay much longer than if your website is slow or has broken links. Poorly designed websites have high bounce rates and this is a metric that search engines factor into their search rankings. You have to remember that a search engine’s job is to deliver the result that most closely match the search and provide value to the consumer. If visitors to your site leave quickly or don’t click through pages on your site the search engine interprets that as low value.

Having a website that engages your audience makes sense on so many levels not just SEO. If your customers or potential customers find your website difficult to use they may look elsewhere for something that meets their needs. Finally, in today’s online world your website is a reflection of your business. If your website is unorganized or unprofessional it indirectly tells the visitor that the company may not be the best fit.

Below are a few considerations for improved user experience:

• Use white space
• Improve page load speed
• Use attractive calls to action (CTA’s)
• Use bullets
• Link to relevant sources
• Utilize images wisely
• Include well-developed headlines
• Keep the format consistent
• Fix broken links
• Be responsive and mobile friendly

One final tidbit, just because you think your website is great to make sure you listen to your visitors and work to meet their expectations.

Build Relevant Links

Link building and content marketing have a synergistic relationship and can significantly impact your SEO efforts. Since the release of the Google Penguin update, many website owners are hesitant to fully engage in active link building. Here is where a little bit of common sense goes a long way. Building links that have no value does nothing for your site and provide no value to your visitor.

The key is to build links from relevant, authoritative, high-quality websites that will help drive related traffic to your website.

Below are a few tips to help develop SEO friendly links:

• Tip #1 Be Social and leverage your fan base to encourage links to your content.
• Tip #2 Build links to your inner pages. The home page is great but that not only limits your reach it looks contrived.
• Tip #3 Diversify your anchor text. You want to make sure that there is diversity in the pages and keywords used as that is how linking naturally occurs.
• Tip #4 Focus on quality of your links, not the quantity.
• Tip #5 Make sure your content is link worthy. Valuable content has a way of attracting the right audience and linking to value.

Be Social and Stay Active

Social media is a little harder to see the direct influence on SEO. Social signals are not directly factored into the search algorithms but they do influence how your content is consumed.

Active social media management encourages great content to be shared across multiple channels that can generate traffic to your website, earn inbound links to targeted content, and build overall brand awareness.

While social shares may not directly influence your website’s ranking, your social profiles definitely impact the content in search results.

Social media platforms have become their own search engines and while it may not be Google they can deliver a targeted audience to your content.

Finally, social may not be included today but that does not mean that at some point they are included. They are a significant part of how companies interact with their customers it only makes sense that they play a role in how search terms are defined in the future.

Develop Your Keywords Strategically

Proper keyword research is critical to developing content that your consumers are actually looking for. Often as a website owner, you are a little too close to the products and services you offer and define them in a way that makes total sense to you and your internal organization. But there is often a disconnect between how you relate to your business and how your customers search.

Keyword phrases or long term keywords should be as specific as possible to your company, services, and products. They should also be conversational and not be overly marketed with lingo or acronyms. The easiest way to ensure that you are planning efficiently is to consider how you search for things and how you like for the results to appear.

Voice search is becoming more and more popular. You should consider incorporating keywords as they are spoken not how they are typed. We tend to be much more formal when we type into search as compared to when we use voice search to find the desired topic.

SEO will always be with us and will be determined by search engines pursuit to deliver the best results possible. The elements considered in SEO will continue to evolve but by sticking to the basics listed above and using common sense you will build a long term strategy that will build value and deliver improved ROI for your website.

Contributed by http://www.firerockmarketing.com/