With major Google algorithm updates in 2012, we have learned a new lesson to implement our SEO practice in a totally different manner. Shortcut ways and inappropriate tactics are no longer applicable for the search engine optimization. Google panda, penguin and EMD updates have shown the cause and effect. Let’s face the truth that algorithm updates are unpredictable, but there are more to come in 2013.

These major updates created a panic environment among internet marketers, webmasters and bloggers as well. Many websites, blogs lost their traffic, ranking and businesses by these changes. Now, what does it mean? It means that the Big G has given us a clear signal that if our website or blog is unable to serve the purpose of Google users or if you are trying to trick Google, you are no longer welcome.

Most of us want to be in the good book of Google and we need to try hard to remain in the book. We should focus on real work, which provides value to users and it needs time and efforts

So, the big question is “how should we manage our SEO strategy in 2013”. As I mentioned earlier that algorithm changes are unpredictable, but there are some important facts, which should be taken up seriously to achieve the SEO goal in coming days.

In my opinion, there are three factors which could be considered crucial to set up an SEO campaign.

1) Diversity

We need diversity in different SEO grounds like keywords, target pages, link building to make our SEO efforts more successful by increasing web visibility.

Keyword Diversity

We should focus on various keywords which are related to our website niche. We can target highly competitive keywords, but we should also select a medium and low competitive similar keywords as well. Optimizing a website with no keyword diversity reduces the value of the website to search engines.

Page Diversity

Internal pages have a great potentiality to web users. We may notice that whenever we search, we get specific results for that specific search term. Search engines generally try to show their users accurate pages exactly related to a user search query. That is why internal pages are most important for optimization. Page diversity increases web visibility and traffic as well.

Link Diversity

After selecting various anchor texts and target pages, here comes the promotional part link building. Before we start building links, we should have the knowledge about the difference between link building and spamming. The links are built from various and valid sections such as guest posting, blog commenting, forum participation, etc. Today, the real link building is not so easy because we need to build links from genuine and authority websites or blogs. If you need links from good sites, you need to contribute. When search crawlers find links on authority sources, they send strong signals, which are beneficial for the website. It helps achieve good position on search engines.

Traffic Diversity

There are other traffic sources from where we can drive traffic to our website rather than search engines. YouTube, Google plus, Facebook, twitter, interest is biggest social media platforms where millions of users are engaged. We should focus to build fans, followers and friends by contributing useful elements like contents, videos or images, etc. You may have noticed that Google analytics provide social media activity data of your website. It means Google has the information about your website performance in various social networks, which may help determine ranking.

2) Velocity

Velocity is about the promotional speed of a website, whether it is aggressive, normal or less active.

Link Velocity

The goal of link building is getting links from high authority websites or blogs, which helps ranking improvement. If a website is building links aggressively without judging the quality of link sources or trying to get a huge number of backlinks in a very short period of time using spam tactics certainly gaining the possibility of getting a penalty. Sometimes excessive link building causes over optimization and on the other hand website with no promotional strategy failed to drive traffic and ranking development as well. The best way to build links is slowly, but in a steady rhythm.

3) Quality

After Google panda and penguin update, we have realized that quality is one of the key factors in SEO.

Link Quality

A few years back; webmasters and internet marketers focus on quantity of links more than quality hope to achieve a higher position. After the Google penguin update, the element of quality has become more important than quantity. It is wise to get links from reputed sources more than building thousand of links from poor quality websites. Links from authority websites are long lasting and do-follow ones pass link juice, create traffic and add value to your website.

Content Quality

Contents should be unique, fresh and should provide valuable information to visitors. Visitors like to read those contents which satisfy visitors’ interests. The quality content helps increase visitor engagement, reduces bounce rate and even increase conversion rate. On the other side, contents, which make no sense, full of errors and spelling mistakes, stolen from others, stuffed with keywords do not pass valuable information and are called low quality contents. The motivation of the Google panda update was to filter quality original contents from the junks. So, original contents are playing a vital role and we should try to add value to contents to improve our SEO goals.

There is another important factor, which should be taken seriously.

Content Frequency

Most of business website contains a blog to share the latest updates about their products, services, and helpful tutorials, tips to attract and engage visitors. It is important how often we update the site contents; is it daily, weekly or monthly. Search engines are always seeking fresh and new contents. It is best to update your website or blog with fresh contents in a scheduled manner, whether it is weekly or daily basis. We are actually giving new information to our visitors by providing new contents.

Diversity, velocity and quality are important factors, but there are many other factors remaining like proper on-page, technical issues like, 301, broken links, social signals, etc. to determine search engine ranking. Above I have discussed promotional factors, if you have more ideas please share with us.

Written by Samrat Bhattacharya. Edited by Aritra Roy.

Samrat Bhattacharya loves reading and writing on seo related topics. He also enjoys sharing knowledge on the topic with other people on the web. Currently, Samrat is working as seo and social media strategist at Linkboostup, a link building company. Connect with him on Twitter.