10 SEO Best Practices to Help You Rank Higher

Search engine optimization (SEO) best practices are tried-and-tested ways to improve your visibility in search engines like Google.

Here are 10 SEO best practices every marketer should follow:

Include Keywords in Your Content

Keywords are relevant search terms that you want your page to appear for, and strategically adding them to your content can help you rank higher.

Basically, the page seems more relevant to search engines if the keyword seems to occur naturally.

Don’t force keywords into your content where they don’t belong. This can make your website look spammy to search engines and users. So, it can harm your SEO.

You can think up keywords on your own and look at Google’s search suggestions for inspiration. But it’s generally best to find keywords through keyword research tools.

This is because keyword research tools can help you: 

• Find keywords you haven’t thought of
• Prioritize keywords based on their popularity
• Identify keywords you’re likely to rank highly for

You can search for keywords in Google Keyword Planner.

Or use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, which provides some additional metrics and features.

For example, the Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD %) metric indicates how hard it’ll be for your website to rank in Google’s top 10 results for a given keyword.

To ensure a keyword is relevant to the page you’re creating, check the top-ranking results in Google.

This gives you a strong indication of search intent (what the average searcher wants). And satisfying search intent is crucial to ranking highly.

Write a Unique Title Tag

Write a unique title tag (off-page title) for each page to help search engines understand what your pages are about and rank them accordingly.

You should also write title tags with users in mind because they can appear in:

• Users’ browser tabs
• Link previews on social media
• Search engine results pages

Some website editors make it easy to change the title tag. If yours doesn’t, consider installing a plugin that enables easy editing. 

For example, the Yoast SEO plugin provides an “SEO title” field:

We recommend using a title tag that accurately conveys what your content is about. And keeping your titles under 60 characters in length, so there’s less chance they’ll be cut off in Google’s search results.

Also, place your most important keyword near the start of the title—users will be more likely to notice it.

For example, the title for this page is “10 SEO Best Practices to Help You Rank Higher” and our main keyword is “SEO best practices.”

Use Heading Tags Correctly

Use HTML heading tags to define the headings on your pages to make it easier for search engines and users to understand the structure of your pages.

Typically, you can apply headings by highlighting the text in your word processor or website editor and choosing the appropriate style from the list.

Here’s an example of how to add a heading tag in WordPress:

Every page should have one heading one (<h1>) tag that contains the main heading (i.e., the on-page title). 

Make sure this heading matches or nearly matches with your page’s title tag. Otherwise, you may cause confusion for users and search engines.

You may also want to use subheadings to break your text into sections.

If you do use subheadings, apply <h2> and <h3> tags on a hierarchical basis.

Like this:

You can use <h4>, <h5>, and <h6> tags to add more depth to your sections. But this can make it harder for readers to follow your structure.

Submit an XML Sitemap to Google

Submitting an XML sitemap to Google tells the search engine which of your pages should be indexed (i.e., added to its database of possible search results). 

Basically, an XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want to be indexed. And it looks something like this:

Many website platforms (like WordPress and Wix) generate an XML sitemap automatically. If you don’t use a platform that does this, you can use a sitemap generator tool.

You may want to make sure the XML sitemap:

• Contains all pages that should be indexed (i.e., pages you want to be discoverable through search engines)
• Doesn’t contain pages that shouldn’t be indexed (e.g., staging site pages or order confirmation pages)

After downloading your XML sitemap file, submit it to Google through Google Search Console.

Add Internal Links Between Pages

Adding internal links between related pages on your site is an SEO best practice because it helps search engines and users navigate your site and understand its structure.

So, look for opportunities to link to related pages when writing your content. And try to build internal links to new pages you create.

For example:

• If you’re writing a blog post and you mention a product, include a link to the product page
• If you publish a new blog post about a topic, find existing posts that mention this topic and add a link to your new post in each one

Internal linking is especially helpful if you use anchor text (clickable text) that describes what the linked page is about. As long as it reads naturally to your users.

For example, this very post links to our blog post about internal links the first time we mention “internal links.” This helps readers and search engines understand the linked page’s subject matter.

Make sure to use absolute URLs (e.g., “https://www.semrush.com/blog/internal-links/”) rather than relative URLs (e.g., “/blog/internal-links/) for internal links, as absolute URLs are more SEO-friendly.

Build Backlinks to Your Site

Backlinks are links to your site from other sites, and some are good for SEO because they indicate that other people find your content useful.

The best kinds of backlinks come from reputable and related websites/webpages. So, focus on trying to acquire links from authoritative sites in your niche or a closely related niche. 

Here’s a quick summary of some link building tactics you can use to get more high-quality links pointing to your site:

• Link baiting: Publish high-quality content that writers in your niche can refer to as a helpful resource 
• Skyscraper technique: Create a better version of a widely linked-to piece of content in your niche, and encourage websites to link to your version instead
• Broken link building: Use a tool like Backlink Analytics to find broken backlinks to your own site or competitors’ sites, then persuade admins to replace them with working links to your site
• Brand mentions: Use a tool like Brand Monitoring to find unlinked references to your brand on the web, then ask the publisher to add a link to a relevant page on your site

Familiarize yourself with Google’s spam policies before you start link building. Because manipulative SEO practices (such as buying backlinks) can do more harm than good for your site.

Optimize Images for SEO

Image optimization is a best practice for SEO because it makes your website faster, more accessible, and easier to understand.

First, resize and compress your image files so they’re as small as they can reasonably be to reduce load times.

There are many image editing tools and website plugins that make it easy to minimize your files without compromising quality.

Second, add descriptive alt text (HTML image descriptions) to images that carry important meaning. To help search engines and users of screen readers understand what the image depicts.

Like this:

You can typically add alt text via your word processor or website editor. 

Here’s an example of alt text being added to an image in WordPress:

Publish Helpful Content for Your Audience

Publishing helpful content that’s specific to your target audience is one of the best SEO practices because it can make Google perceive your website as more authoritative and useful. 

Plus, publishing different types of helpful content helps you rank for a wider variety of keywords.

Here are some quick tips for creating helpful content:

• Publish content centered around topics that are relevant to your brand’s expertise
• Focus on creating content for your target audience rather than for search engines
• Use reliable sources and make sure the information you share is accurate
• Incorporate original ideas, insights, or other elements to set your content apart from competitors’
• Make sure your content is easy to read, comprehensive, and well presented

You should also avoid unhelpful content (e.g., low-quality blog posts or blog posts about irrelevant topics) because this content can harm your reputation.

Check your website for any content that doesn't meet Google’s helpful content standards. Then, improve this content or remove it from your site.

Deliver a Great User Experience

To deliver a great user experience (UX), you must make it convenient, safe, and enjoyable for your target audience to interact with your website.

Good UX is good for SEO because Google wants to display websites that its users like visiting.

Here are some tips for success:

• Use the HTTPS protocol (which uses encryption) to keep your visitors’ data secure
• Make your content load as quickly and reliably as possible by optimizing code, enabling browser caching, choosing fast hosting, etc.
• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly by using a responsive design, minimizing pop-ups, using easily readable font sizes, etc.
• Build a logical website structure with descriptive URLs and provide clear navigation menus
• Avoid ads that interfere with the main content of your page

Many of the other good SEO practices in this guide are good for UX, too.

Note that you may need a web developer or SEO specialist to help you with technical tasks.

Conduct a Technical SEO Audit and Fix Any Errors

Regularly conduct technical SEO audits of your website to check for technical problems that could seriously harm your search performance.

You can schedule weekly or daily audits with Semrush’s Site Audit tool. 

The tool crawls your website like a search engine does to check for over 140 issues. And categorizes issues into Errors, Warnings, and Notices to help you prioritize.

The tool’s recommendations are based on Google guidelines and SEO best practices.

If you sign up for free, you can crawl over 100 pages per month.