SEO has been a factor to consider in making content and promoting business online. But why is this so? You’ll find it out in this SEO guide for beginners.
But, first things first, what is SEO? SEO or search engine optimization is a process of improving your website’s visibility online. Through effective SEO, your business website can gain more organic visitors, helping you rank better on search engine results pages (SERPs).
This may sound so simple, but SEO requires deep work, tenacity, and time to flourish. However, when you start to gain results, all will be worth it!
SEO in a Nutshell
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing your website’s quality and quantity of traffic through organic search engine results on various search engines like Google and Bing. Although SEO is just a three-letter word, it covers a range of sectors such as:
- Quality of Traffic
- Quantity of Traffic
- Organic Search Results
These three SEO components can be used to determine if your content is successful during your web assessment.
Traffic Quality
Quality of traffic refers to the accuracy of the search results that show your products. This is about showing your products to the interested customers that might purchase them after their search.
For example, you’re a seller of Apple electronic products, and people are coming to your site because Google has shown your store to them while searching for Apple products. Quality traffic is about getting the attention of people that are genuinely interested in your products and services.
Quantity of Traffic
Quantity of traffic refers to the volume of people clicking through the search engine result pages (SERPs). When an internet user searches, a lot of topic-related results will be shown to that user.
Once the user chooses to click your link, it’ll be part of the quantity of traffic to your site. The more clicks you’ve got, the better!
Organic Search Results
Ads are a big chunk of various SERPs. Sometimes, they’re seen on top of result pages, but this doesn’t mean you have to pay for ads to appear on the top search results of search engines.
With the right keyword, you could rank higher on SERPs even without paying. As long as the search term is relevant to your keyword, you’ll likely succeed on the organic search results in the search engine result page (SERP).
Why is SEO Essential?
SEO is essential for the following reasons:
- It drives more people to your website.
- It increases your web authority.
- It improves your customer experience.
- It gives you an edge against your business rivals.
- It helps increase conversions, getting you more sales and customers.
How SEO Works
Search Engines, particularly Google, have a web crawler that gathers information about all the content they can get on the Internet. These crawlers will then bring all those 1s and 0s (binary) back to the search engine to build an index.
Furthermore, the index will then be fed through an algorithm to match all the data with the user’s search query. This way, if a user searches for peaches, all peaches-related articles will be shown to that user.
How to Incorporate SEO in Your Website
Consider doing the following make the best out of incorporating SEO into your website:
Step #1: Make an In-depth Keyword Research and Use Relevant Terms
A keyword is a significant part of SEO. It indicates your article’s primary topic and helps people to possibly find it when searching it on Google, Bing, and other search engines.
Thus, it’s essential to do in-depth keyword research before making your content. This way, you can ensure that your keywords align with your target audience’s search intent.
Ideally, it’s best to use both short keywords and long-tail keywords to rank better on SERPs. This is because short keywords have a higher search volume, making it difficult for you to rank for that particular keyword.Â
On the other hand, long-term keywords have lesser search volume, but it’s very particular. Thus, you have the advantage of targeting the exact audience that’s searching for that specific product or service. So, it’s best to use both long-tail and short keywords to potentially rank better.
Furthermore, it would be beneficial to look for other strategic ways to optimize your website entirely.
Step #2: Put Keywords on Each of Your Page
Each of your page or blog posts should contain related keywords on the topic you’re writing on. This way, your blog post or article would be shown when an internet user types in the keyword or related keyword you’re using.Â
It would be best to put your keywords strategically and avoid keyword stuffing to prevent your article from getting dull or bizarre. Put your keywords ideally in:
- Title of your post
- URL
- In the first and last paragraph of your article.
Moreover, it’s also best to put relevant keywords throughout the article and tags of images used. This way, you can maximize putting the needed keyword and its related keywords on the post.
However, make sure that your article’s flow isn’t disrupted by the keywords you’ve placed. Keyword Stuffing is strictly a NO-NO in making a good article.
Step #3: Internal Linking for Better SEO Results
This will give a better user experience and navigation of content to your audience. This will also make your other content be viewed by the users navigating your site.Â
Hyperlinking your old articles to your new ones can also help bots index and contextualize your web pages. Â
Step #4: Make High-Quality Content
High-quality content is required to engage your readers. Thus, make sure that your content is covered with essential information.
Make sure that your content provides potential answers to the reader’s questions and needs. This way, more audiences will stay and go back to your content because of its relevance.
Moreover, ensure to write clearly, directly, and conversationally to deliver your point succinctly. Avoid fluff writing as it can discourage your readers from staying on your page.
Step #5: Optimize Your Images for Better SEO
Images help make your content look better. It also describes your content through imagery and tells what it’s about.
Furthermore, images are also vital for SEO, as they help your website from getting crawled—not the image exactly but the image’s ALT-text, or simply the picture’s description.
Using the same keyword as the image ALT-text ensures that Google will index your article for that particular keyword. It will also help if you compress the image you’re using to load the image properly.
A big size image can slow your web speed, which is crucial in SEO. So, make sure to optimize your image correctly by putting alt-text and doing image compression.
Step #6: Ensure that Your Page Load Better
Page speed is now a factor in ranking your website on SERPs. Thus, it would be helpful to focus on your page speed and other components to ensure people will stay on your website’s pages longer.
Step #7: Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Since mobile phone users are soaring high each day, making your website responsive to smaller screens like mobile phones and tablets would be beneficial. This makes your content more available to the public when they need it.
Step #8: Update Your Pages and Content Regularly
Another way to keep your SEO on track is to update your pages and content regularly. Go over to your pages and verify if they’re all optimized or there’s a need to update information in your past articles.
If your articles are not updated or optimized, it will likely lower your ranking and authority.
Make the Best Out of SEO Today
If you’re a business owner or someone planning to put your business online, SEO is your best weapon to have leverage against the tough competition in the market. If you haven’t done any SEO campaign for your business yet, you can hire digital specialists from a reputable digital marketing company like Xploited Media.
Digital marketing companies can help boost your online presence, reach your target audience, and attain your business goals. So, hire a trusted digital marketing marketer today!
