The SEO Hunger Games: Make Sure the Odds are in Your Favour

Being dropped on a deserted island to engage in hand-to-hand combat sounds rough. But SEO is truly cutthroat.

Google only has one front page, and everyone with a website is vying for a spot on it. Winning this game truly means stepping over the losers. It’s competitive, it’s aggressive, and it’s not for the weak at heart.

There is one key difference between the Hunger Games and the SEO War. During Catching Fire, Katniss says, “Nobody decent ever wins the games.” That’s not true in SEO. In fact, it’s the bad guys and the black hats who often pay the price.

So, to ensure that the odds are always in your favour in the SEO War, make sure you follow these tactics.

1. Don’t Fight Alone

Most business owners don’t have time to worry about SEO because they’re too busy running their business, which is understandable.

If you don’t have the time to run your own campaigns or manage your own site, there are plenty of affordable SEO services that don’t have to break the bank.

Katniss and Peeta had Haymitch. So, find your SEO Haymitch. Or find an SEO Yoda, if you’re more of a Star Wars fan.

2. Write Content For Human Users

A lot of agencies have moved away from traditional SEO writing in recent years. They are now simply focused on good writing.

This means they’re doing away with the Google-focused keyword stuffing tactics of the past. They’re now embracing human-focused tactics like storytelling and targeting their audience’s pain points.

For the last few years, Google has been saying that it’s best to write for human beings, not search engines. So, focus on the quality of your writing, not the quantity of your keywords.

3. Avoid Spammy Links

Google put an end to spammy link building tactics a few years ago with their Penguin Update. Prior to that, you could conceivably gain a bit of SEO traction by linking to substandard content on unrelated sites. But that has changed.

Now, the Penguin is watching over the web. You need to earn organic links, on reputable sites, with quality content.

4. Focus on Mobile

Your site’s mobile experience has been a crucial part of your SEO success since Google announced mobile-first indexing in 2017. They know that most of the world’s web traffic now comes from mobile devices, so they’re rewarding properly optimized mobile sites

Today, your site’s mobile-friendliness is more important than ever, and it’s a crucial part of Google’s upcoming Core Web Vitals update.

5. Be Fast and Get Faster

Google also knows that users hate waiting. That’s why page speed has been a ranking signal for some time, and it will be a major part of the Core Web Vitals.

Today’s webmasters need to be aware of these crucial metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): How long does a page take to fully load?
• First Input Delay (FID): When can users start clicking on links and buttons?
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): When do all the page elements stop moving around?

Faster is almost always better in SEO, and it’s hard to imagine that changing any time soon.

These are not tricks or hacks. These are proven SEO tactics that will help you ensure that you’re ready for the next update, and that the odds will always be in your favour.