To have a successful website that ranks in search engines you should understand what is SEO marketing and how to do SEO. So in this article, we will go through the basic SEO meaning and teach you how to do SEO for a website step by step.
SEO is a moving target what works now will not work in the future if you don’t have knowledge of the way search engines work, as its algorithms keep developing. There are 5 criteria for Successful SEO you will learn about in this article.
SEO meaning “search engine optimization”
SEO (search engine optimization). In short, it is the process of delivering your business website to your potential customers. SEO improves your website and increases its visibility. So, SEO for small businesses is like a free ticket to success. Whenever someone is searching for a product that your business offers, your page will hop up in the top results. Higher viewing means higher traffic hence increasing your business customers.
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What are the 5 important concepts of SEO?
To achieve SEO success you must understand its concepts, so here they are:
1- The first criteria of SEO is Links:
To rank, your page must have links, and by saying that we don’t mean that you go and add as many links as you can. That will harm your website, what we mean is that you add relevant links to the content of your website. Or add some links at the bottom of your page that shows the customers where to go next, or what is the next step that will give answers to their questions.
Link is a major factor that will make your website Rank so pay attention to them.
There was a study made to understand the importance of links in a website and they found that fewer links or no links at all means low ranking on search engines.
But what is the importance of links?
Having a link from high-authority sites is like having someone that guarantees that your website is trustworthy. Increasing the number of websites links will show search engines that your website is reliable and not a fake website.
Okay, now you will say I understand the importance of links, but how do I get them?
Getting kinks is not an easy task, but there are some methods to follow to get backlinks, here they are:
- Publish an original study or case study: this is an effective way to force people to link back to your site.
- Write testimonials for other companies: make a list of the companies that will be of use to your website and write them a testimonial asking them if they want your website to offer a testimonial for their site. Most probably they will accept and if they don’t send you a link asking them for it in a polite way.
2- Content
To rank, you should write helpful content, content that answers what the customers want. This is also one of the search engine ranking factors.
Also, you should make content consistently to show search engines that your website is active. But how will Google know that your content is useful? By measuring the time people spend on your website. If you are offering useful and relevant content the reader will keep reading which means that they will spend more time on your website.
Remember useful and relevant content is the key, it is still important to target keywords but in an effective way and in their context. Don’t just throw random keywords and wait for your website to shine because it won’t.
Now let’s see how to make content that attracts the reader and answer his Questions:
- Create long content.
There was a study to see the average word count on the ranking webpages and it found that the average is 1890 words. Seems a lot right?
You are right; in order to write useful content that answers the people’s needs and concerns, it must belong. This will also be beneficial to you; you can target many keywords in your article.
- Try different types of content.
Another great way that will help you is to make different types of content, see what people are searching for, and write about it.
You could also make videos because people prefer to watch a video than read, it is also shareable which will increase the traffic to your website.
- Repurpose old content.
It is essential is to keep your content up to date. For example, you could add more advice or new information that wasn’t there at the time. That is how your SEO-friendly content will rank.
3- Meta Descriptions and Headlines are one of the Concepts of SEO
Headlines and Meta description is what represents your page in search engine results, it is the first impression that people take about your website. So you need to pay attention to them, write an attractive headline, something that grapes the reader’s interest.
Regarding Meta description, you should give a hint in it on what your article provides to the reader.
One important ranking factor is called click-through rate (CTR). What does it mean? It is a comparison between the number of people who clicked the link and how many people saw it in search results.
If the number of people clicking your link is low then your ranking on search engines will drop to the ground.
Headlines and Meta descriptions are the main players here, they are the ones that represent your page and the information it offers.
So make a headline that attracts the reader and at the same time contains your focus keyword and is optimized for SEO.
Here is what you should do:
- Keep your keyword at the beginning of the headline:
You need to make search engines understand what your content is about and that is how you do so.
- Make it a headline that will catch the reader interest:
However, don’t focus on making a catchy headline and end up making a headline that doesn’t represent your content. Or else people will click it then leave fast because it doesn’t contain what the heading says it does. When they leave your website fast this will cause your site to fall in ranks.
But the time it takes for your site to load is just one of many metrics that Google analyzes to assess user experience. UX is such an intricate discipline with many aspects that it has its own field of experts.
4- Make your website User friendly:
To make people love your website you need to put in mind what they care about and what they don’t.
What people care about is to have the information they want fast and easy. So here are what you should do:
- Increase the speed of your website
When you open a site you want it to load fast, not to wait for a long time until you see what the site offers. Or you will simply leave, because why would I stay on a slow website if I have other dozens of web pages offering the same thing? So having a fast website is one of the SEO keys to rank.
How do you make your website fast? Use images of small size, because large images take a lot of time to load.
- Keep your website easy to deal with
Don’t make a complicated site that when people open get confused and don’t understand what to do. They need a simple website that offers them the information they need without having to look all over the place for it.
- Limit ads.
Let’s face it ads are annoying, when you open a website and you find many ads that pop up in your face you will get angry and leave. Ads shouldn’t take more than 30 percent of the vertical spaces in your website.
When you open from the mobile ads will be really difficult to close them so they need to be limited or else you will lose your rank on search engines.
5- Mobile SEO
This is a very important factor, as Google announced the following:
“The “Speed Update,” as we’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.”
Currently, google analyze the speed of your website according to the desktop but in the future, it will be decided according to the mobile.
Most people use their mobiles nowadays no one searches from the desktops anymore. And Google announced that over the past years most of the searches were from mobiles.
So how to have a mobile-friendly SEO? Take Google’s mobile-friendly test. Just take a copy of your website URL and paste it, then wait for a second and you will have your result. If your website didn’t succeed Google will tell you what the problem is.
What makes a successful SEO?
SEO is complicated, and search engine algorithms keep changing which makes it harder. so we will tell you about the ranking factors that will help you shine amongst your competitors.
Here are the pillars of SEO that you should focus on:
- Technical SEO: How well your content can be crawled and indexed.
- Content: the content that answers the reader’s question. Give relevant and useful content.
- On-site SEO: making your content well optimized.
- Off-site SEO: Building authority to ensure ranking on Google.
Technical SEO
What you should focus on is to make sure that search engines like Google can understand your content and explore your website easily. You do this by using some tools that will explore your website and tell you where the technical problems are.
The main things to focus on:
- Crawl. Can a search engine explore your site?
- Index. Is it clear which pages the search engine should index and return?
- Mobile. Does your site adapt for mobile users?
- Speed. Fast page load times are a crucial factor in keeping your visitors happy.
- Tech. Are you using search-engine-friendly tech?
- Hierarchy. How is your content structured on your website?
For small businesses, it would be useful to you to work on WordPress to help you solve any SEO problems quickly.
On-site SEO optimization
When you finish writing your article you should make sure that your content is optimized. And here are the SEO requirements of online content that you should focus on:
- Keyword research. Write about the keywords that people are looking for, give people what they need.
- Descriptive URLs. Ensure each URL is simple, descriptive, and contains your keyword. Keep it short.
- Page titles. Make sure that the title contains your keyword.
- Meta descriptions. Write a Meta description that shows to the reader what is the information you will cover in the article.
- Content optimization. Sensibly use keywords and variations in your page copy.
- Good user experience (UX). Ensure your site is easy to use, limit the ads and increase the speed of your site by using small images.
- Strong calls to action. Make it easy for your users to know what to do next.
- Structured data markup. Tap into the latest SERP features to improve click-through rates.
When writing an article, you should keep in mind the customers you are writing for them and only they can make your article rank.
How do you measure success in SEO?
There are many metrics but here are the most important ones to track:
- Organic Traffic: this means how many clicked your link in a search engine results.
- Keyword Ranking: to rank using a keyword your webpage must be optimized.
- Click-Through Rate: This represents the number of people clicking your link when it appears in search engine results.
- Bounce Rate: this represents the number of people who open your website then leave fast quickly. This represents the quality of the content you offer.
All of this controls how your website ranks in the search engine, so to ensure that your page is SEO friendly and attracts the user you need to measure those metrics. There are many tools out there that can help you with that.
What are the five most important on-page SEO factors?
The five most important factors are:
6-Content.
7- User engagement.
8-Technical structure and SEO.
9- Internal linking.
10- Mobile optimization.
- Content: make an SEO friendly content:
To rank, you should write helpful content, content that answers what the customers want. This is also one of the search engine ranking factors.
Also, you should make content consistently to show search engines that your website is active. But how will Google know that your content is useful? By measuring the time people spend on your website. If you are offering useful and relevant content the reader will keep reading which means that they will spend more time on your website.
Remember useful and relevant content is the key, it is still important to target keywords but in an effective way and in their context. Don’t just throw random keywords and wait for your website to shine because it won’t.
- User Engagement:
The purpose of your website is to make people engage with what you offer, so you need to keep it simple and easy to use. Not to just focus on optimizing the SEO and forgetting about the reader. Readers are your top priority.
- Technical Structure:
