In recent years, search engines like Google have changed massively in order to deliver most relevant results to their customers. Gone are the days when websites loaded with links and keywords were enough to achieve high rankings on search engines. Google algorithms have become more complex with recent updates like Panda4.2 (penalize websites for low quality content) , Penguin 3.0 (hits websites considered to be spamming its search results,) which penalizes the websites having low-quality content, and most recent mobile-friendly update, which enhances the ranking of websites optimized for tablets and smartphones.

With the change in updates, you must change your SEO strategy otherwise it will have a bad impact on your rankings. Here are a few SEO tips that can help you achieve top rankings in the Google SERP.

1) Pay More Attention to Content

Content is what that helps you to stand out from the crowded space of online search. When it comes to digital marketing “ABC” acronym always remind webmasters about “Always be creative.” When you’re pursuing digital marketing (SEO or pay per click), the quality and amount of content matters. For example: Wikipedia, just because of its great content often ranks high at Google’s SERP.

Pages are weighed depending on the content, so make sure to avoid low quality and minimum word limit content and increase the word limit. You need to put on content that people are looking for, not what you want to put on.

2) Mobile Optimized

Your website must be mobile optimized if you really want to win at SEO. It includes site design, page speed, and website structure. Make sure that your website design is not turning away mobile visitors unintentionally! Most of the people use smartphones to access online information. Therefore page load speeds are crucial in terms of SEO. Developing light and fast responsive website in HTML5 is a standard procedure now. So if your website is not mobile optimized properly then Google may degrade your site. You can check PageSpeedinsights to know whether your website is mobile optimized or not

3) One Piece of Content Should have One URL

You might want to share your content to a larger and more recognized website to grow your audience. This can result in a number of people reading your content, but it can also work against you. Google might redirect more users to the website where you’ve shared your content rather than your website, because even though the content is similar, larger websites have a higher SEO ranking and, therefore, Google considers them more reliable. Make sure that the content you’re sharing is unique and links back to a single URL on your site. This avoids confusion not only for users but also for Google’s crawler.

4) External Links are like Virtual Votes of Confidence

According to Google, your website will become more trustworthy if number of other websites links back to you. External links tell Google that your content is in demand and offers a quality that users want to read. It’s almost impossible to fake at the level of links, so if numerous websites are linking back to your website, then Google automatically understands that website is authentic. One caveat: External links should come from good authority sites or else Google might start considering your site as a fake and penalize your site for spam links.

5) Don’t Fool Google

People often try to fool Google by using dubious techniques, like adding more and more content to the website without compromising its style, putting white text on white background, and faking external links to the website to raise credibility. Google easily catches the websites that don’t follow rules and penalize them by switching off your SEO or de-indexing your website. So it’s better to not get into trouble and follow SEO rules aptly.

In short, create a resourceful, engaging and helpful website that can offer users useful information that helps them. Effective SEO is something that works with Google instead of against it. So if you’re working according to Google norms, then your SEO strategy will definitely give you the best results.