Google is one of the most lucrative brands in the world. As of Feb. 2017, it was worth $109 billion.

So why are we sharing this information with you?

Because the company’s search engine processes billions of queries per day. And you want to drive as much traffic from those queries to your website as possible.

How, though, can you optimize your site to capture the traffic you’re looking for?

Here are 11 organic SEO tips you can try today to generate traffic:

1. Use Header Tags

There are two major reasons to use header tags when writing online content:

1. Readability
2. Scannability

Readability is one of the most important features of any piece of online content. When people type their queries into search engines, they’re looking for fast answers. For this reason, they prefer content they can easily digest.

Scannability is closely related to readability. It describes a piece of content’s ability to be scanned by its readers.

And how do header tags improve readability and scannability?

They break the content into neat sections that are easy on the eyes. As an added bonus, search engines recognize keywords in header tags and use these keywords to help rank your site.

2. Prioritize Readability

Here’s another tip about readability:

Stop writing blog posts as if they’re dissertations.

Yes, great writing and analytical skills are important if you want to produce amazing copy. Even so, few people will read your content if it’s just a wall of text.

That said, try breaking your content into small paragraphs and using more header tags to break up the content.

3. Optimize Your Graphic Content

There’s more to SEO-friendly content than high-quality images. The off-page elements of your graphic content matter as well.

But what are these off-page elements?

The file sizes and format are just a couple of examples of off-page aspects of images. If your images are too large or are poorly formatted, your pages’ load times will increase.

You should also use keywords in your images’ titles, descriptions, and captions. Even the files’ names should include the keywords you’re targeting.

4. Try Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique is SEO expert Brian Dean’s brainchild. The idea behind the technique is curating content and elevating it.

Imagine, for instance, that there are tons of blog posts about how to choose the best cable provider out there already. Now ask yourself:

How can I add to that conversation? How can I write about choosing a cable provider while providing additional information that no one else has thought to add?

We also recommend putting together “ultimate guides” that touch on every possible aspect of a subject. These comprehensive guides tend to perform well.

5. Check Out the SERPs

Before you create something new, you should always find out what already exists.

So if you want to create better content, head to the SERPs to see what good content is already out there. Once you’ve located this content, figure out why it ranks so well and implement some of the strategies you uncover.

6. Don’t Neglect Keyword Research

We all know that keywords are important. But some people underestimate the power of keyword research.

Keyword research’s usefulness extends beyond unearthing the terms people are using to describe your product or service. Keyword research also alerts you to new trends and allows you to think about how you’re branding your service.

7. Use Secondary Keywords

Let’s say that you sell custom-made sports caps. Because you sell these sports caps, you decide that you want to target the following keyword: custom-made sports caps.

But here’s the problem:

Your target audience uses more than one keyword to search for your product. Further still, there might be other, related keywords they usually use in conjunction with your target keyword.

Some customers, for example, might also search for “custom-made sports caps New Jersey.” Others might search for “custom-made sports gear.”

Both keywords are related to your primary keyword. As a result, you can use them as secondary keywords (if they apply) and enjoy some of the web traffic those keywords provide as well.

8. Increase Your Site’s Speed

Have you ever visited a site that took forever to load? If so, how did you respond?

Our guess is that you didn’t stick around for long.

You should expect each customer to behave just as you do when they encounter slow pages. Consequently, prioritize increasing your site’s speed. Doing so will help you decrease your website’s bounce rate.

Here are a couple of tips for increasing your site’s speed:

• Optimize your images. Large images, for instance, can take forever to load.
• Have someone take a look at your web pages’ code. Clunky code can increase your pages’ loading times.

9. Avoid Duplicate Content

Let’s be clear:

Taking inspiration from another website isn’t a crime. In fact, some of the best work is inspired by other work.

But duplicating content isn’t equivalent to taking inspiration. Search engines regard it as plagiarism, which is why they punish sites for posting duplicate content.

Of course, sometimes duplicate content accidentally makes its way onto sites. Some of us forget to deindex obsolete pages. Others forget to use quotation marks where they’re needed.

In any case, always make sure that you’re producing original content. And if you need to, run your copy through an online plagiarism checker.

10. Link to High-Quality Websites

Bloomberg. CNN. The Hill.

All of these online publications have at least one thing in common: authority.

People generally trust the information they find on these websites. And search engines recognize this.

But they also recognize sites users don’t trust. So if you link to one of these sites, you’re going to hurt your sites’ reputation in the process. In the world of Google, a bad reputation means less web traffic for you.

11. Build Organic Backlinks

Listen carefully:

Please refrain from buying links. As a grey hat technique, purchasing links isn’t as bad as most black hat techniques, but you can still get in serious trouble for doing so.

And here’s another tip:

Don’t buy web traffic. Doing so will only temporarily inflate your traffic. And you’ll receive a penalty if you get caught.

Our best advice to you?

Try building organic backlinks by doing outreach and producing great content.

Want More Organic SEO Tips?

Well, those are our best organic SEO tips for you at the moment. They’re actionable and can be put to good use today by any company.