In simple terms, SEO is a collection of best practices, methodologies, and software tools that marketers use to make a website and its contents “findable” by search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. At the same time, although it might not sound as apparent as tech skills like coding language or web design, search engine optimization strategist are crucial for almost any web-related role.
Technical SEO – Ensures search engine spiders can crawl your site and index your content.
On-Page SEO – Focuses on the content for each webpage
.
Off-Page SEO – Focuses on the marketing efforts away from the website that will have a positive impact on search rankings.
We’ll cover these in more detail later in the guide, but one thing to remember from the beginning is that all Search engine optimization strategist activities should be carried out with your audience in mind. Your aim should be to create and present the best possible content for people to consume. If you do that, then the search engines will also like and rank your content.
As a result, your content will earn more links and Google will send you more traffic. This is ‘perpetual growth’ in action.
SEO FOCUSES ON ORGANIC TRAFFIC
The purpose of any website is to attract users and either convey information, sell a product or service, or collect contact details for future marketing opportunities. While some website visitors will come from social media, paid ads, or marketing emails, a successful website also needs visitors who “stumble” onto your site through their own searches.
“Organic traffic” is the marketing term for users who visit a site through the results of a search engine query (or by “Googling” it). Let’s say someone types “what is SEO and how does it work” into their Google search bar, see this article in their search results, and clicks on the link to read it. They’re counted as an “organic” visitor.
How Does SEO Work?
Understanding the basic concept behind Search engine optimization strategist is one thing, but how does it all work?
SEO mostly revolves around two strategies:
- Optimizing site architecture (the actual coding and design of a website)
- Optimizing site content (the text of sales pages, blog posts, product descriptions, etc.)
You’ll need to apply best practices to both in order to see your search traffic trend upward at the fastest rate possible.
SITE ARCHITECTURE SEO
Site architecture optimization can include:
- Improving the overall user experience of a site (making your content easy for users to find and engage with)—this will encourage repeat visits and links from other sites, all of which increase search engine ranking.
- Make sure internal links in your content lead to other relevant and useful material—again, this encourages users to spend more time on your site, which corresponds with a favorable ranking.
- Creating a sitemap—a collection of categories and links in the footer of your pages will make a site more indexable (or “findable”) by search engines, and more navigable for users (an SEO win-win).
- Google rewards sites are designed to be as easily viewed on a small screen as they are on a desktop computer.
Why is SEO so important?
If you don’t optimize your website for search engines, you risk losing potential customers to your competitors because their websites appear higher in search engine results than yours.
Think of how many times you turn to Google each day to find out which local bakeries have gluten-free options or where you can get new sandals at a good price.
When someone searches for information that relates to the products and services you offer, you want to show up.
And ideally, you want to show up prominently. Research shows that 60 percent of traffic from Google searches goes to websites that appear in the first three search results.
What are keywords?
Keywords are words and phrases that describe what your content is about.
Think of them as a bridge.
On one side, you have all the pages that the search engines have indexed. On the other side, you have searchers looking for answers to their queries.
Keywords bridge the gap between the two. It’s important to understand the reason people are searching, so let’s take a closer look.
Facts about SEO:
- 25% of SEO is on-page and 75% is off-page.
- The content of the page is the most important element in SEO and the page title is the next most important on-page element.
- Meta descriptions that are persuasive and under 155 characters help SEO.