Rising up the rankings on search engines can be a demanding task, but in 2018 there are new trends emerging to make the most of. Here are five top tips to growth hack your affiliate business using SEO.
Use In Depth Keyword Research
The keywords in use and the competition around them are always changing. This means that you should be using tools that allow you to predict what will happen to the keywords you are using and where the opportunities lie in the future.
Instead of going with what you think would be effective, you should spend time researching what will actually work for you. Google Trends and Keyword Planner will both give you additional information on which keywords are reaching more people and which are reaching fewer.
Then, using best practice SEO for on page content, you can catapult yourself to success with niche or up and coming keywords.
Andy Edwards, Founder of Mad About Media – tells us more ahead of his session at the Affiverse Bootcamp, 21 march 2018 “ Content is king as the saying goes and in 2018 this still stands true. Your content needs to be unique, informative, keyword rich and optimised for your money keywords based on traffic per keyword. “
Create Compelling Meta Data
When you appear in the SERPs, this is your chance to compel users to actually click on your site. Meta data is an advertisement for your site, so use the title and description to your advantage.
Don’t try to mislead your user with meta data that doesn’t accurately represent the content of the page. This will lead to your user bouncing off the page without engagement, which will then have a negative effect on your overall SEO.
As meta data is now getting longer, with Google extending their maximum character count, you have more room to experiment in 2018. Use this to your advantage and do something that makes you stand out among your competitors.
Implement Rich Snippets and Schema
Within your site, you can also add in schema data to give yourself more exposure in the results. Not all affiliate sites are eligible to use every kind of schema markup, the most important thing to remember is to use them as intended.
For example, you could use schema to give a star rating for a site or game advertised within your portal, which would then show up in the SERPs. Google are cracking down on misuse of certain elements, like sites using the event markup to push a sale, rather than an actual event.
You can experiment with a range of these, basically all you have to do is tell Google what the information on the page means. If you already have a star rating system on your site, then you would simply need to highlight this and submit the data.
More Visual Searches
You may have noticed that Google are now providing videos in position zero, if they answer the query. How they’re selecting these videos and the exact criteria to appear are as yet unknown, but it’s a clear indicator that they’re focusing more on this kind of result.
They’re delivered through YouTube at the moment, as they are owned by Google, but this could expand to on site videos too. Hosting your video on YouTube and embedding it onsite could grant you some additional exposure in 2018.
If you have a page that is already ranking well for a search query, consider enhancing it with a video. This could boost you up a few positions and even grant you that snippet position. You can also share this on social media platforms to improve the social signals too.
Don’t Count on Algorithm Updates
A few years ago, you could count on an update and the notes that go along with it. At this time, when Google changed up their algorithm, they’d tell web masters what had changed and what they could change on site to fall in line with it. This is no longer the case, as machine learning has taken over the algorithm.
We can use tools like Mozcast to attempt to figure out what has changed each day, but this isn’t always reliable. The most important thing to focus in on is what makes for a good user experience. The machine learning part of the algorithm is intended to understand what makes a good site for the user, so they can recommend the best results for their users.
In 2018, there are plenty of opportunities to stand out, even if you don’t have the largest budget. Using SEO to boost the awareness of your affiliate business is more achievable than ever, take these tips to get you started.
