7 Facts you Never Knew about SEO 2016

Are you new to SEO? Honestly, search engine optimisation or simply SEO is a complex discipline. It has many facets and even the best practices this year may no longer be relevant the next year, allowing for new sets of best practices. Not to mention, Google updates its algorithms (or the way which it indexes and ranks websites), and yet it won't confirm the ranking factors it uses.

To make things a little less complicated especially for the noobs, here are the facts you ought to know about SEO.

1. A website is broken up into distinct segments

An SEO is not trying to rank a site, but rather specific pages within that website unless the site is a one-page site. The most relevant landing pages are targeted and optimized. One way to do this is through on-page SEO where you tweak the title tag, meta description, alt tag, etc. to oblige with Google requirements.

2. A website doesn't need to rank for several keywords

If you have a big website such an e-commerce site, it makes sense to target a few dozens of keywords. However, for a niche site, optimizing the site for a term or two will do. So, choose your core term wisely through a comprehensive keyword research.

3. Google uses 200+ ranking factors

Unfortunately, it won't publish or confirm that it uses such particular factor to index and rank a website. We just need to take a cue from the search engine's announcements, claims, and statements. For instance, in 2014, Google announced that it gives a ranking boost for secured websites. Thus, if you want to rank higher, use HTTPS, a secure protocol.

4. Google is not the only search engine

Although the majority of the SEO efforts are directly and indirectly implemented to appease Google, it is not the only SEO. Did you know that even YouTube and Amazon are considered as search engines? Then, there's Bing—Microsoft's search engine. Facebook is also becoming an important source of information. Optimizing, therefore, may depend on which platform you are targeting.

5. Organic list is not the only way to appear on SERP

SERP means search engine results pages. If you noticed how Google displays SERPs nowadays, you'd see instant answers, local 3-pack, knowledge graph, and AMP (accelerated mobile pages) carousel. The images you used on the site may even appear on Google Images provided that they are properly optimized as well.

6. Incoming links are not always considered as good SEO

Generally, incoming links are good for a website. Gone those days, however, wherein you collect as many incoming links as you can. That's because Google is also looking into the trustworthiness of the sites that link back to you. If it has authority issues, chances are, Google will flag your website. The cliché quality over quantity has never been truer in this aspect of doing SEO.

7. A mobile strategy is necessary

Not just for AMP, but another SEO factor to look at is the mobile-friendliness of the website. Without it, you are going to lose business to those local providers with a mobile-friendly website. That means your site will not rank in mobile searches. You don't want to be a part of this statistics more so today wherein 60% of the searches are done through a mobile device.

In SEO, what you don't know can definitely hurt your website. It is thus important to keep yourself informed of the latest changes and best practices going forward to update-proof your site in the future.

Author:

Joseph Sayaff is freelance writer in SEO Company Philippines

Tags: 7 Facts You Never Knew About SEO 2016, Facts about SEO, SEO information, Secret facts about SEO, SEO facts