21 Google SEO Tips for 2021

A month in 2021– how’s your website going?

Are your statistics going upward? If it’s on a steady path, going downhill, or even going uphill, you have to know these Google SEO tips for 2021.

Applying these tips will move mountains for your organic traffic. We have four categories to discuss in SEO tips– increase engagement, on-page SEO, technical SEO, and link building.

Increase Engagement

In Google, you can increase your engagement without a higher rank– apply an excellent SEO. You will generate more organic traffic. Although we aim to have a higher ranking, you can have more engagement without increasing your rank. Here’s how:

1. Favicon Optimization

If you are not familiar with favicon, they are small icons in Google and mobile search results. It helps increase your click-through rate if they are visible to web users. Thus, have an excellent favicon to entice your target audience.

2. Breadcrumb Optimization

Google displays breadcrumbs on search results, both on mobile and desktop searches. These breadcrumbs are keyword-rich, and they can positively influence your click-through rate. Google collects breadcrumbs from different places– schema markup, URL, or actual breadcrumbs from the page.

In this case, it is best to have Google display the breadcrumbs that you want them to show. Use the keywords, ensure the breadcrumbs links to your page, and you have a schema markup.

Create an excellent breadcrumb optimization audit.

3. Meta Descriptions

Although meta descriptions are an old-school Google SEO tip, several websites don’t use them, and most of those with meta descriptions are doing it wrong.

Meticulously write your meta description to persuade users to click on your page. If people click on your page, that means you have keyword-rich meta descriptions.

4. Title Contain Numbers

Studies show that numbers added on titles increase rankings on some brands. However, do not spam and put nonsense numbers on your titles. Insert numbers on titles if it makes sense.

5. Title Tag Boilerplate

What about the boilerplate on your title tag? Boilerplates are the parts of your title tag that repeats. Some brands see boilerplates as useful, while others have higher engagement and ranking when they remove them. Thus, it is best to experiment when using the boilerplate to know what best suits your website.

6. FAQs and How-to Schema

You have to win the how-to and FAQs schema. Although there is a lot of these schemas in the search results, you have to optimize your page to have a place in the SERP. It helps increase engagement and entice web users to click on your result.

Although it is not applicable to every page on your site, ensure that you have it on your FAQs page. You can increase your engagement without increasing your SERP ranking.

On-Page SEO

Most web owners and digital marketers are too focused on content creation. Here are some tips for on-page SEO that can help you.

7. Relaunch Top Content

“Hot topic” contents will only click for a few weeks or months. After a year, it will become past its best. Most people will forget about your blog whether you launched it on your website or shared it on social media.

What you can do is go back to the last few years and see which content you can relaunch, update, and keep on the same URL. Web owners will notice 500% to 1,000% gains by relaunching their old top topics.

Thus, this 2021 you will do a relaunch audit.

8. Boost Internal Linking

One of the easy to apply Google SEO tips is internal linking. Naturally and intelligently link your pages to help Google crawl your website easily.

9. Remove Unnecessary Links

PageRank sculpting is different from nofollow link page sculpting. In this tip, you have to remove unnecessary links. Removing unhelpful links give way to more link equity.

10. Update Old Content with New Links

After removing unnecessary links, you have to update your old content and insert new links. Some web owners skip this tip. However, it is best to update your old content and add on the links to your latest content.

Doing this tip will help lower your bounce rate and add relevance to your new and old content.

11. Mobile Link Parity Audit

Ensure that the links on your mobile website are the same as your desktop site. You have to pay attention to this since Google is in a mobile-first index. What they see on your mobile website is your website.

That’s why some reduced desktop websites have missing links. Do not join the “link equity lost” club. Ensure the mobile link parity between your mobile and desktop site.

12. Create Long Content

The cliché, most common, always on the list Google SEO tip– investing in long-form content. Although the content length is not a ranking factor, short-form content can also have higher rankings. However, studies consistently conclude that long-form content has more shares and links than shorter ones.

If you wish to have more revenue, engagement, and more potential in SEO ranking, create long-form content.

13. Have More Headers in Content

Since you will create long-form content, it is evident that the next Google SEO tip is to have more headers in your content. It means you have to use the H2 (headline 2), H3 (headline 3) tags, and so on.

Break your content into sections with good and keyword-rich headers. If you have more header tags, your webpage will likely rank for featured snippets. Experts have discovered that websites with 12 to 13 headlines rank for the most featured snippets. However, it seems a lot of work to do, yep! It will give you more visibility on SERP.

14. Take Advantage of Topic Clusters

Make a cluster of topics, create content about them, and link them together. Do the internal linking naturally and smartly to increase the engagement. Remember, people are searching for a query. It’s natural for them to read different articles.

15. Avoid Accordions or Drop-downs

Are your contents in accordions or drop-downs? If you are not familiar with it, accordions or drop-downs are usually used in FAQs. You have to click on the drop-down to reveal the content.

Several studies show that most web visitors are not in favor of accordions and drop-downs. It is better to place the text content directly into the main body. Studies have concluded that the text on the main body performs better than the content hidden in accordions.

Although Google recognizes and appreciates accordion content– they have it indexed and ranked. It is generally the web visitors who do not engage with the content that is in the tabs.

The Technical Side of SEO

Do not fret. These are only a few tips for technical SEO. Let’s make it quick and less tedious.

16. Core Web Vitals

Have you invested in Core Web Vitals? Google will bring page experience signals this year, and it will become a ranking factor soon.

Core Web Vitals is associated with page speed and experience. It may be quite technical for some, but Google has tools to help you figure it out.

If you are using WordPress, experts recommend using Cloudflare. The APO for WordPress is the best way to speed up your website that WordPress powers. It will help you have a better score for Core Web Vitals. Moreover, it’s cheap, easy to use, and an excellent help to speed up your website.

17. Limit to 10,000 Sitemaps

In each sitemap, you can have 50,000 URLs, but even so, having a large website can lead to index issues. That’s why limit your sitemaps. You do not have to use all the 50,000 URLs. If you want to improve how Google can crawl your website, use smaller sitemaps and compress limited URL sets.

Most likely, Google will prioritize those and get better data from Google Search Console. You can quickly determine which pages are indexed or not.

18. Pull Dynamic Sitemaps

Gather dynamic sitemaps. Dynamic sitemaps change based on what you want Google to crawl. Thus, if you have a large cluster of URLs that you want Google to crawl, prioritize the ones in a dynamic sitemap.

It is best to limit your sitemaps to 1,000 URLs. If Google has crawled and discovered some of your pages, remove them from the cluster and add high priority URLs that you want Google to find. Make the sitemap small and compact to let Google easily crawl the URLs you wish Google to notice.

Link Building

Every web owner has a love-hate relationship with link building– it is hard to perfect this strategy but it gives so much benefit if you do it right.

19. Passive Link Acquisition

Create content that gains links passively when people discover it on the search engine results page (SERP).

You do not have to do outreach web owners. Yup! You read it right. When journalists, bloggers, and content writers find your webpage, they will link to it naturally. How can you do this? Create content that your target audience is looking for.

Most of these content are guides, how-tos, data, or relevant information about the niche. These types of content earn a lot of links when the target audience finds them. Thus, passive link acquisition is the most sustainable method to make backlinks over time.

20. Page-Level Link Intersect

Page-level link intersect refers to finding a website to which the competitors are linking, but these websites do not link to you. These websites are more likely a resource page. Since they are linking to multiple competitors, they will most likely link to me if I make a request. That’s the essence of doing outreach.

21. Get the First and Last Click

21st tip for 2021– as you badly want the first click, be persistent in gaining the last click. What does this mean? You should satisfy your users.

As you are eager to earn the first click of your web visitors, aim that you are the last– have the information, they are looking for. Make user satisfaction one of your priorities. Your goal is to provide the information they need.

That’s the magic of SEO. Your target audience will search for a query, and you provide the relevant content. There’s a greater chance you will have a higher rank if you are the last click. You will gain the web traffic your website deserves.

All right, folks! That’s the 21 SEO tips for the year 2021. Make this your roadmap to success. Share our Google SEO tips!