The top 10 things you can do today to make your website perform better


October 10, 2014
Up close at SMX East New York 2014

Earlier this month I was lucky to be able to attend SMX East in New York City. The conference was jam-packed with the latest information about search marketing and featured tons of amazing speakers who are innovative leaders in their fields. The conference was only three days long but I felt like I gathered enough information and inspiration to last me for several months. So once I finally sifted through my notes, I realized that while there were overarching themes to help establish a solid marketing plan and content strategy, there were several key takeaways that I could do right now to improve my day-to-day routine.

  • What Google’s Pidgeon update means for your site’s SEO is that on-page optimization matters, but over optimization is being targeted so don’t go overboard.
  • With Google’s Hummingbird algorithm, entity search matters more than just keywords so keyword stuffing your content isn’t going to work anymore. It’s becoming increasingly important to concentrate on topics rather than solely on keywords.
  • If you’re stuck in a creative rut, brainstorm 10 content ideas a week. At the end of the week review your list. Most ideas won’t be great but consider merging two ideas into one since this is often where the best ideas come from.
  • Want to delve into your customer’s mind and need an easy place to start? Consider a SurveyMonkey quiz to see where their heads are at.
  • Social media posts with strategic social markup gets more shares than other posts. Get your developer to help your implement Twitter Cards and Facebook Open Graph and see the difference it makes for you.
  • Since 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done online, design a positive user experience that will touch all points of their journey to purchase your product.
  • Buyer personas can help you target ads and content towards your customers so take the time to consider exactly who will buy your product.
  • Brands drive business so don’t be afraid to allocate money and resources into ongoing brand development and improvement.
  • Don’t be afraid to spend money to promote your content across your social media channels. You put money into content creation so why wouldn’t you put money into promoting it?
  • Use keyword research to help shape the content you produce so that your content is seen by people who are looking for it.

Have you ever had a lightbulb moment or been given a piece of information that completely changed your perspective on how you’d been doing things? We’d love to hear about it! And if you’ve tried any of the above suggestions, I’d love to hear how it affected your workflow!

This post was written by Tasha DiLoreto, Content Manager at Ontario SEO.