Gone are the days when you could just cram in 50 keywords on a page of content and get good search results. Choose one topic, keyword, or key phrase and use it no more than three times on the page: Once in the header, once near the beginning of the body content, and once again near the end. That’s it.

All of your content should be written for human readers, not for search engines. Before you publish anything, try reading it out loud to yourself. Does it sound normal? It should be easy to read and simple to understand.

The surest way to make your content unappealing for humans is to jam in keywords where they don’t belong. If it sounds awkward to read a phrase out loud, move it or take it out entirely. Always err on the side of readability.

Update your blog regularly, and make use of sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Spread tips and tricks, news stories, how-to guides, and anything else you think your readers would find useful. Ask readers to share the story! Include links back to your website.

Do NOT just spam links on random websites that do nothing but aggregate posts. The point of link building is to get readers to find out. If you don’t expect anyone but a search engine to find a link, it’s not a worthwhile link to build.

Relevant is the key word here. Avoid pictures of ladies standing next to servers with their arms crossed over their chests. Videos shouldn’t be too long, and should complement the written content on the page they share – there should be a reason for the pictures and videos to appear on each page of your site.

Text, images, and videos should go together on your pages and lead into each other. If all three are relevant, they provide different ways for Google to rank your page.

Any good web designer will ensure your site is SEO accessible – that the headers and tags are clean, the page content is clear and understandable, and that there’s a good balance of content with design. Those are the basics you need to start with.

Be very careful about hiring someone to “tweak” your existing site to make it more SEO friendly. So long as you’ve done the groundwork with a well-designed site and are including high quality content, you should be fine. Most tricks that an “SEO expert” will perform won’t help – and some may even hurt.

Helpful downloads are an amazing tool for generating good will and creating leads from visitors to your site. Publish white papers, infographics, tips and tricks, FAQs, and other things they can download and use regardless of whether they’re your client. They’ll appreciate it and be more likely to call you.

Don’t create 18 hoops for the reader to jump through just to get the download, though. A simple lead-generation form is fine – don’t bother with email verification, Captcha codes, or any of that. Make it as easy as possible for the reader while still getting you the information you need for your lead.

Guides on the services YOU use for your own business

Infographics on any topic

Short (no more than 3 minute) videos

Tips and tricks on new technology

Security and compliance checklists

Interviews with subject matter experts

Question & answer articles

Case studies with real-world clients