Introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization(SEO). It is a mandatory marketing tactic to help your website gain a position in search engines. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comprises technical and creative elements to improve ranking, drive traffic to your site and increase visibility in search engines. SEO is not about just creating places that are search engine friendly, but it’s about creating a user-friendly site. You would have heard about the terms Search Engine Optimization(SEO) all the time, but do you know the details of such terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
This guide will help you to learn about all the areas of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), from finding the keywords to drive traffic to your site and gain a higher rank in search engines.
It will give you answers to the questions like:
- How do you optimize your site for a search engine?
- How much to spend on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
- What is a good SEO, and what is a bad SEO?
Why is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Important for a Website?
- Web traffic to a site is derived mainly from search engines. People search for a lot of things daily on search engines. Search engines help people find your site. If search engines are still looking for your site, you will miss out on the opportunity to drive traffic.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the tool for bringing such traffic to your site through search engines. If a site gets a lot of traffic, it will provide exposure, profit, and publicity.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can bring a lot of return on your investment compared to other marketing techniques.
- Search engines are more intelligent and update their technologies frequently to give better results to the searchers. To meet these technologies, SEO is important for your website.
- SEO brings more visitors to your site and grabs more attention. If one uses SEO correctly, it will take you to great heights in your business. If you are using the wrong Search Engine Optimization techniques, it will bury your site altogether. Choosing the proper search engine optimization techniques will help you make the search engine crawl to your site quickly and increase your rank.
- Internet use is increasing among people, and as a result, many companies perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It will increase the number of competitors for your site in getting a higher ranking in search engines.
Search Engine Optimization Techniques
Following are some search engine optimization techniques that you should be aware of:
1. Keyword research
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) begins upon typing words into the search box of search engines. Keyword means the term people are searching for in search engines. Keyword research is one of the critical factors in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Right keywords can make your site more potent. By researching the keywords, you learn about your industry’s most demanded search engine optimization (SEO) keywords. It will also let you know about your customers in detail. Keyword research helps you in getting the correct type of visitors to your site. It sounds so simple to do keyword research. It requires a lot of effort. There are a few search engine optimization (SEO) factors to consider before identifying your site’s keywords.
Search engine optimization (SEO) factors are below.
a. Search volume
- How many people are searching for a keyword? These statistics will help you to know the high-demand keywords.
- The more one searches the keyword, the more the audience will be for that keyword.
- If there is no volume for any keyword, then avoid such keywords in your content.
b. Relevant keyword
- Even if the search volume for a keyword is high, see through that the keyword is relevant to your business.
- Select a keyword by keeping your prospects in mind.
- There might also be a few keywords that can indirectly relate to your business but are considered more important. Find such keywords and use them in your content.
c. Competition
Understand the competition for specific keywords in the search market. It will help you estimate the potential cost and likelihood of success.
Ask yourself a few questions:
- Is the keyword relevant to your site?
- Will the searchers get what they are looking for using these keywords?
- Will the keywords increase traffic to the site?
- Can you get good returns by using such keywords?
- Who are your prospective customers?
- What are they interested in?
- What is their problem?
- From which geographical location do they mainly belong?
- Who are your competitors?
- What are your competitors’ keywords?
Once you get the answers to all these questions, you can derive the best keywords for your site.
A lot of keyword tools are also available to help you with keyword research.
2. On-Page Optimization
After deriving from a list of keywords, the next step is to implement those keywords in your site’s content. Every page on your site should include the target keywords and keywords related to your industry.
Let’s have a look at a few of the On-Page factors which will drive traffic to your site:
a. Title Tags
The title tag is what appears at the top of the browser. You can include your keyword in the title tag. The title tag should be at most 60 characters. The title tag is what the searcher sees in the search result for your page. So make it more attractive to the searchers.
b. Meta Descriptions
A meta description is your site’s ad copy displayed in the search result for your site. Include your keywords in the meta descriptions and make your explanation more compelling, making the visitors click on your page.
c. Headings
Separate the contents into smaller sections and give headings for each. H1 tag usually means to mention the main title of the page. Other headings can be included under H2, H3, H4, and others. There should be only one H1 tag for a page. Make sure that the titles include relevant keywords.
d. Body Content
It is the actual content of the pages of your site. It is a significant factor in increasing your page rank. Your content should not be focused only on the search engines; you should also consider your visitors in mind while writing the content. There are a few essential things to have in mind while writing content.
e. Unique Content
Avoid copying content from any other site or blog. The longer the content, the more it will drive traffic to your site. Add unique content and ensure it is published first in your area. Check for plagiarism before updating the contents of your site.
f. Engaging Content
Your content should make the visitors get more engaged with your site. Your content should answer all the questions of the visitors. Make your site pages load faster. Only include a few graphics and animations on your page. It will make the visitor lose interest in your site.
g. Shareable Content
Have social network sharing buttons on every page of your site. When your content is shared, it adds more value to your site. It will also let the search engine know that the pages of your site have some value to the visitors, and thus, in turn, it increases the ranking of your page.
h. Alt Attributes
If you have added images to your site, provide a text description for the idea. It will be helpful for the users to read the report if they cannot view the image. Apart from your content, the image description helps the search engine understand what the page is about. Refrain from overstuffing the keywords by using them in the image description. Just use appropriate words for the report. Also, give a file name for the image relevant to your content or business.
i. URL Structure
URLs also plays a crucial role in ranking factor. A good URL will be helpful for easy sharing and tracking. Keep these factors in mind while creating a URL.
- Avoid using extraneous characters
- URLs should be only in alphanumeric type
- Shorter URLs rank are better
- Instead of underscores, use dashes
- Subdomains can rank better than subdirectories
j. Domain Names
Domain names with keywords related to your industry are more likely to gain a higher ranking in search engines. Exact match domain names like Hotels.com for the hotel industry will rank much better in the search engine. If a search engine derives most of the traffic to your site, then the exact match domain will be your best choice.
k. Domain Names
Domain names with keywords related to your industry are more likely to gain higher ranking in search engines. Exact match domain names like Hotels.com for hotel industry will rank much better in the search engine. If most of the traffic to your site is derived from a search engine then the exact match domain will be the best choice for you.
l. Sitemaps
- Sitemaps are like a roadmap for a search engine to easily crawl to the other pages of the site which remain undiscovered. There are two types of sitemaps – XML and HTML.
- XML sitemaps are coded for the search engines to read whereas HTML codes can be read by the people who use the site.
- XML sitemaps contain every page of your site even if it is in millions
- HTML sitemaps contain link to the most important page of your site.
i. Schema
A schema is a form of microdata that helps search engine crawlers easily understand the information on your page. You can directly add The schema elements to your HTML code.
3. Site Architecture
The right type of site structure can help boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and influence your page’s ranking in search engines.
The factors which comprise the site architecture include the following:
a. Site crawlability
Search engine spiders crawl to the sites more quickly, make copies of your page, and get stored in called ‘index.’
Search engines crawl through all the site pages, and if it finds that the information provided on the site is relevant and the best, then they will display it to the searchers.
Your site must be accessible for search engines to crawl. There are a few search engine optimization techniques to make the search engine crawl to your site easily.
- Avoid using Java Scripts and Flash on your site.
- Use robots.txt.
- Use internal links on the pages.
- Tell search engines not to crawl certain pages of a site.
- Use sitemaps.
- Make site navigation easy.
b. Mobile Friendly
- Due to increased technology, many searches happen on mobile devices rather than desktops. As a result, search engines are ranking mobile-friendly sites better than other sites that do not have a mobile-friendly design.
- Always remember ‘Search engine friendly’ also means ‘human-friendly.
- If your site is mobile-friendly, your chance of success in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is higher.
- It makes the visitors happy and converts them into customers.
- It is even better to have a mobile app for your website.
c. Site Speed
- Search engines want to make the web faster, and as a result, they have included site speed as one of the critical factors for ranking a website.
- Sites that load faster get a slight ranking advantage over the other sites.
- Speedy sites will attract search engines as well as a lot of visitors to your site. It grabs their attention and makes them engaged in your area.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Here we discuss the introduction and search engine optimization techniques. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –
