What You Should Know About SEO
When you first dive into the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it is natural to feel overwhelmed by the volume of things that you should learn. You know that many of your competitors have been in the game for a prolonged period and aren’t sure if you can play up to their standards. SEO continues to evolve every year, as the major search engines introduce new ranking techniques. However dynamic the concept is, some SEO principles are here to last.
Understand the big picture
Before working on individual tactics, take some time to understand why SEO is essential. What is the big picture of SEO? What does it mean to your business? SEO works at optimizing a website so that it can rank well in searches that are relevant to your site focus. There are several ways to get there, but the bottom line is to improve your authority and relevance. With this in mind, you can read on for specific forms of enhancing your online visibility.
Content is king, but good content is all that matters
Content marketing is one of the buzzwords in SEO, especially among online marketers. This can be attributed partly to the constant Google algorithm updates that rank low quality poorly. Even as you focus on creating content, you should maintain high standards so that you can milk the most out of the benefits of SEO. Remember that search engines will always reward sites that deliver high-quality content to internet users.
Page layout is essential
When you create content in accordance with the “Google rules,” your chances of getting found will be increased. Take time to do thorough keyword research to know what people are often searching. Creating content that people already want to read is a valuable SEO tactic. Make sure you follow Google’s page layout. It includes a META tag and a META description. There are also H1, H2, and H3 tags. Understand what an anchor text is and how to optimize its use.
You should earn links, and not buy them
Paid links are unlikely to be on Google’s merit. If you bought a link, there is a chance that it will not contribute positively to your SEO efforts. It might even hurt your ratings. That is why organizations should work on earning links via endorsements rather than paying for them. Some marketers have tried embedding keyword rich anchor text in online press releases with the hope of improving their chances of being found on Google, which has not worked out as expected.
Optimize your page titles
When doing a Google search, the blue links you see displayed below the result are usually the page titles. If you employ descriptive titles, search engines will have an easy time finding your website and knowing how to present it to users. Google robots also check the following pages to know if the headers are reflective of the content in question. Ensure the headers make some sense to the user and not look like a distinct list.
Work on online performance
All the major search engines including Google usually monitor a site’s performance with regards to its search engine’s visibility. So, if your website loads fast, your chances of ranking well are higher. Also, the quality of the server that hosts your site will have a significant impact in this case. The quality of website coding plays a crucial role too. The optimization of the images determines how fast the page loads, which implies that it also plays a critical role in your website’s ranking.
The site should also work on enhancing the users’ experiences. Is it optimized for mobile phones? What about its responsiveness? Do you have an app or website that is dedicated to mobile devices? Take the time to address such critical factors.
Factor in social media
It turns out that this relatively old trick still works. Social media is an integral part of the SEO strategy that you should consider. Search signals are crucial, implying that you should consider increasing yours. Although Google is yet to factor in social signals in their algorithm, there is evidence that they do impact the ranking of a website.
