Search Engine Optimization
11/09
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing its visibility to users of a web search engine. It is considered as one of the best strategies to increase the organic traffic on a specific website and to improve the unpaid results. Any direct traffic or paid search placements are not part of SEO strategy.
Even though, there is a debate whether SEO requires high-level of technical skill or special coding knowledge, the truth is that people with such skills have more chance to provide top level results. This is obvious since SEO professionals need to make recommendations about page speed, rendering, lazy loading, server redirects, microdata tagging, and basic HTML tags. On the other hand, there are a significant number of successful SEO experts that do not have these kinds of skills.
In general, there are 7 important steps that every SEO specialist should follow in order to enjoy top organic presence in the search engines:
1.Proper SEO planning
An SEO plan is the most effective key in helping you meet your market goal by analyzing the type of your future customer. By better understanding your target market and creating the right strategy, you have to find your consumer’s behavior to drive effective data. Companies with no SEO plan will probably fail easier than others who follow their strategy guidelines. To keep things short, you have to understand how to boost conversions, stand out against competitors to make sure have the best possible ROI (Return on Investment).
2.Keyword List
Keywords are important because they are the cornerstone between what people are searching for and the content you are providing to fill that need. Your goal in ranking on search engines is to drive organic traffic to your site from the search engine result pages (SERPs), and the keywords you choose to target (meaning, among other things, the ones you choose to include in your content) will determine what kind of traffic you get. If you own a golf shop, for example, you might want to rank for “new clubs” — but if you’re not careful, you might end up attracting traffic that’s interested in finding a new place to dance after dark.
Keywords are as much about your audience as they are about your content, because you might describe what you offer in a slightly different way than some people ask for it. To create content that ranks well organically and drives visitors to your site, you need to understand the needs of those visitors — the language they use and the type of content they seek. You can do this by talking to your customers, frequenting forums and community groups, and doing your own keyword research with tools like Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, KeywordTool.io, Jaaxy and many more.
3.Provide High Quality Content but also make sure to update regularly
When it comes to SEO, content is the king and the queen together! Quality content is the number one driver for high search engine rankings and there is no substitute for great content. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which improves your site’s authority and relevance. So, it is essential to spend valuable time to fine-tune your web writing skills.
Beyond page URL, title, and headings, content is most influential on search engine rankings. Repeat your keyword phrase several times throughout the page—once or twice in the opening and closing paragraphs, and two to four more times throughout the remaining content.
Don’t forget to use bold, italics, heading tags (especially an H1), and other emphasis tags to highlight these keyword phrases—but don’t overdo it. You still want your language and writing style to read naturally. Never sacrifice good writing for SEO. The best pages are written for the user, not for the search engine.
4.Update Your Content Regularly
You’ve probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content. Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule (semesterly for example) and make updates as needed.
5.Link building
Link building sounds simple but is the main process of getting other websites to link back to your website. All marketers and business owners should be interested in building links to drive referral traffic and increase their site’s authority. Furthermore, building a link is one of the most important tools as plays a major role in how Google ranks web pages and it’s also a proven marketing tactic for increasing brand awareness, therefore organic traffic. Getting customers to a website through link building is only half of the battle; keeping them is the difficult part.
Focus on creating relevant links within the text. Instead of having “click here” links, try writing out the name of the destination. “Click here” has no search engine value beyond the attached URL, whereas “University of Athens Enterprise Program” is rich with keywords and will improve your search engine rankings as well as the ranking of the page you are linking to. Always use descriptive links by linking keywords—it not only improves search engine optimization, but also adds value to your readers, including those with disabilities or who are using screen readers.
6.Improve the technical performance of the website
Another area of SEO to focus on is technical SEO, which refers to improving your website’s technical aspects to help Google crawl and index it more effectively and improve your rankings. Crawling refers to Google reviewing and analyzing your site, and indexing refers to Google organizing and storing your content so that it can appear in search results.
Some of the technical SEO factors you should pay attention is the site speed, mobile friendly design and proper format of robot.txt.
7.Upgrade your website’s design and user experience (UX)
When deciding how to rank your page, Google also takes into account how users interact with it. That’s why the next step of our SEO tutorial is to make sure your page is easy to use and enjoyable to look and navigate. It is worthwhile to work with a web design company that can optimize your site for search engine.
Having successful SEO strategy is important for companies to enjoy long-term success of digital performance. Hiring an SEO specialist might be the optimal solution but in case there is no budget available is a good start to follow the above recommended steps.
In case, you need to discuss further how to improve your search engine rankings organically, please free to contact us at 22 010018 or info@adap.digital
