Latest SEO Best Practices to Increase Website Traffic

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Just when you think you’ve figured out how Google and search engine optimization (SEO) work, Google goes and makes some changes. The challenge for the small business owner is…

• keeping up with the changes
• adjusting your marketing efforts
• understanding what your potential customer is going to search for
• come up on top of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP)
• enticing the searcher to click on their link
• driving more traffic to the website
• keeping the potential customer there until they convert into a lead or a sale

“Human search behaviors have changed, and so have the technologies used to interpret and serve up search results.” — Hubspot

What is a Pillar Page and How does it help SEO?

Pillar Page — it’s a new buzz word in the website creation and SEO world. But what is a pillar page? And why do you need one?

“A pillar page is the basis on which a topic cluster is built. A pillar page covers all aspects of the topic on a single page, with room for more in-depth reporting in more detailed cluster blog posts that hyperlink back to the pillar page.” – Hubspot

So what does this mean for your blog, website content and SEO?

First, go through your topics and select those that are you want to rank for — the ones you feel describe the gist of your content. Pick a few — not to specific and not too broad.

For example, you would think my topic would be social media marketing — which is too broad for a pillar page. Yet “Twitter Hashtags” is too narrow. “Twitter Marketing” would be the broad topic, then there would be links to “cluster pages” on specific aspects of Twitter marketing that go into more detail.

This video from Hubspot will help explain topic clusters.

Keywords, however, still have a role to play, according to Social Mediopolis — you need to find the Best Core Topic Keyword Combinations.

Plan out your pillar page campaign for maximum SEO

Bob Carver, Principal Consultant at Carver Technology Consulting LLC, and contributing author for Social Media Today LLC, states…

“While just having a pillar page with links pointing to it from your separate content pieces will boost your SEO, you can get much more traffic, and generate more leads, if promote the pillar page and the pillar content correctly.”

He breaks it down and explains how to publish, promote, and monitor pillar page content to maximize SEO and reach in this article.

He also provides this nifty infographic:

Here are 9 tools to help you create pillar pages that work.

But how do you I get the people to covert and generate leads?

Ah-ha! You’ve got the pillar page and cluster content planned out and published. Now what? Our friend Bob Carter gives us 5 Tips for Generating Leads from Pillar Pages.

Now that you’ve got a daunting task ahead of you in reorganizing your content (I do, too!), you might like to get some help.

Click here to schedule a free 15-minute phone consult to discuss your needs and how I can help you.