The world has seen some important changes in the last couple of decades and we have reached a new level of digital engagement. There is no doubt that we are now fully immersed in the World Wide Web. We use it for business, we use it for personal needs, and we use it for entertainment. This means that we need to be aware of the way it works and how we can make the most out of the opportunities it brings.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization, and this is the process that allows a website to start climbing the organic search engine results for Google as well as other search engine ranks. There is a very complex and highly sophisticated algorithm that decides how to rank content based on several important factors.
To be perfectly honest, there are many aspects of this algorithm that remain a mystery to those who want to rank high, but there is a lot that we know about regarding how it works and what people can do in order to obtain the best possible results when looking to rank their content.
It’s very important to consider that the internet is an extremely vast place with millions of active websites. This means that anyone who is looking to climb up the ranks is going to have to compete with a large number of websites that are also trying to reach the first page.
The competition is relentless and the creation of content is massive, but there is still plenty of room for those who want to get involved as long as they are willing to work hard and be consistent. The biggest mistake that anyone can make with SEO is to think that it won’t take time and hard work to see substantial results, but the rewards of those efforts will be huge as long as you stick to the most effective strategies.
This guide is meant to provide a good explanation of the most essential steps that you need to take in order to implement effective SEO. The process of doing this was quite different a decade ago, and it has even changed in the last few years, but the core and the basic strategies you implement continue to be the same in many ways.
The guide provides information on the following topics:
- The evolution of SEO
- How site maps and indexing work
- The power of On-Site SEO
- The power of Off-Site SEO
- The essentials of SEO
The Evolution of SEO
Optimizing your website for Search Engine Optimization purposes used to be different in many ways. It was all about optimizing the content for the search bots to find it with ease. The problem is that this method was too easy to exploit, and many people would start to use questionable tactics to rank their content high.
They would do things like spam keywords within their websites and there would be no penalization for this. The existing bots would consider the keyword stuffing to be ok, and they would rank those sites high on the results.
This abuse was starting to raise concerns in the marketing community and this led to the creation of the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates. Once they came out, the system became smart enough to penalize content that was considered spam. This put an end to those practices and it gave way to useful and valuable content that implemented the keywords in a way that made sense.
SEO in modern times requires that you are able to create content that is going to be useful to your target audience. This means that in order to rank high, you need to create content of high value that people will share and recommend. This creates a snowball effect of backlinks and engagement that helps you boost your SEO results.
There is more to it than that of course, and that is what we are going to get into right now. You need to be aware of the main components that you have to implement on your suite in order to get indexed.
Site maps and indexing
There are several search engines available out there, but there is no doubt that Google has the largest database of indexed content available online. The web is full of websites that are not indexed, but the search engine that has the highest number of indexed sites is Google by a large margin. Bing and Yahoo are also very good engines, but the truth is that most marketers are aiming to rank high at Google because it is the most widely used search engine.
There are many steps to be indexed in their database, but it’s also important to note that creating and website and publishing it on the web is not going to get your site ranked on Google immediately. The truth is that your site may take a long time to be indexed unless you take a few important steps.
The easiest and fastest way to ensure that your site is indexed fast is to submit the link to Google Webmasters. This needs to be combined with a proper sitemap submission, and once you are verified, you will speed up the ranking process. Your website needs to meet certain requirements in order to be indexed, so be sure to check the documentation a Google Webmasters for this purpose.
Note: Being able to get ranked on Google may not happen within a day or two just because you take all of the necessary steps. Don’t forget that Google is indexing thousands of sites daily and it may take a few days or even more for you to see it on the search engine results.
The power of On-Site SEO
The word power is very important here because the elements that you use for On-Site SEO are going to supercharge your chances to rank high on the search engine. What this means is that you will be optimizing your website content in order to ensure the best results. The following list of essential elements you need to implement if you want to index your website and any future publications within your website.
Meta descriptions
These are descriptions that you need to implement on the website code, and this can be done easily with most CMS like WordPress, or even with basic website builders that allow you to fill out Meta description fields. The idea with the meta description is to provide a very accurate description of what you are offering on the website.</p.
There is a limit of words that Google will consider when reading your Meta and that is of 300 characters give or take some words, but it is a good idea to be able to properly describe your website content within that length. Creating this description goes a long way in ranking your content.
Valuable website content
There is absolutely nothing more important than creating quality content that your readers will find useful. The idea is to give them content that is available for free, and that content should serve some kind of purpose that will help them. For example, if you have a website that sells musical instruments, you could come up with posts like “how to take proper care of your electric guitar” or “how to keep your bass in tune”.
The point being that there should be some value to the post and this is what is known as content marketing. You are promoting your website by creating content that people find useful, and this means that they are more likely to share that content with others. Google loves this kind of content and this is the main reason why you should focus on this kind of content.
Consistency is going to be a key factor for you to continue to climb the ranks and to maintain a stable ranking. Imagine how easy it would be if everyone could just write a couple of great and useful articles and then they would magically appear on the top of the results. If this was the case, there would be no room for everyone to appear on the first page or even the second or third page.
Keep in mind that thousands of sites are often competing for any given keyword or niche, and you need to be very consistent with your publications if you want to remain competitive. This is going to be a major thing to keep in mind at all times. A site that is looking to rank high on any moderately crowded niche is going to have to post several times per week, and optimally at least once a day or even more.
This is not to say that a couple of new posts per week are not going to help, but it helps a lot more if you create new content often and the content is of excellent quality. The main thing to remember is that you are going to need to maintain your content efforts as consistent as possible.
There is always going to be another website out there that is working just as hard as you are, and you can bet that here will be another site working harder too. The secret is to keep the content flowing even if you are not posting it daily. Perhaps a good rule is to never let an entire week go without any updates.
Video content
While text continues to be the backbone of SEO, the use of videos is becoming very popular for many reasons. YouTube is one of the most powerful video streaming platforms available. The best thing about YouTube is that a lot of the content on the page is indexed as part of Google’s search results. This creates the opportunity for more content you create to be indexed on the web.
A good strategy that people can use is to create highly engaging video content that uses titles related to their target audience. This increases the chance that they can rank some of those videos and they can add links to their own website on the video description.
Other aspects of On-Site SEO to consider:
Create a proper link structure
Your website navigation needs to be as optimized as possible if you want search engines to consider it worthy of a good rank. The hierarchy of the website is going to be interpreted properly by the bots if it makes structural sense. Also, make sure that your content leads to external domains as this is considered good practice. It would be to reference other publications that talk about other aspects of the content you are sharing.
Speed is crucial for a good rank
Google has been very vocal when it comes to how they give priority to sites that load fast. It is also important to remember that modern website visitors are very impatient and this means they will bounce out of your site if it takes more than a few seconds to load. The term bounce is given to any visitor that is only on your website for a few seconds and then leaves.
If you want to optimize your website speed, you may want to make use of Googles speed tool called Pagespeed insights which can also be found in the Google Webmaster tools. This is going to tell you how long it takes your website to load and what you can do in order to improve those loading speeds.
Just to give you some perspective, it has been proven that many visitors will bounce out of a website within just 3 seconds of loading time if they see it will take any longer than that. You also need to take slow internet speeds into consideration when you optimize your site. It’s not ideal to test it with a fast connection.
Responsive design
A mobile friendly website is extremely important if you want to rank your site high on mobile results. There was a phenomenon called Mobilegeddon a few years ago, and it was an algorithm that claimed it would stop showing non-responsive websites on the mobile search results. Now that we look into this change year later, it obvious that only mobile friendly websites are being ranked high on the search results.
There are some areas of the world that have more than 50% of the people browsing the internet using mobile devices. This means that having no responsive design will automatically make you lose your chances to reach all of those people.
Responsive websites are perfect for any type of resolution or device. The content adapts to the different sizes and shapes of the screen and this makes it an extremely powerful feature. The good news is that having a responsive web designed is not as difficult as it used to be.
You can get your existing website redone with a responsive template for a very low cost and you could also do it yourself with a CMS like WordPress. Content Management Systems have a learning curve, but once you learn how to use them, it becomes much easier to design and update any website.
Proper coding
Your website needs to be coded properly if you want to have great results in general. Some people consider the use of a Content Management System like WordPress to be ideal because it allows them to stop worrying about coding and then can simply focus on the design. As mentioned earlier, a CMS may take some time to learn to use, but it is fairly easy to learn to use one such as WordPress or Joomla.
The power of Off-Site SEO
This can be explained easily as any actions you take to improve your website SEO outside of the boundaries of the website. The most relevant element of this strategy is backlinking. A back link is simply any link that is posted on another website that redirects people to your website. So, a link to your website that can be found anywhere outside of your website is a backlink.
There are two main types of backlinks that you can consider using:
The organic backlink
This type of link occurs when a website posts a link to your website without you having to request that link to be placed on their site. This can happen when other website owners stumble upon any content they like and they post a link to the source of that content.
The Deep backlink
When someone links a page on your website that is not your home page, this is known as a deep backlink. This is often found when someone laces a link to an article within a website to refer to something they mentioned on their own content. Deep backlinks are useful without a doubt, and the more of them that are found in popular websites, the better.
Other backlinks
There are also backlinks that come from social media, but these backlinks are not as good in terms of helping your SEO when compared to the ones we mentioned earlier. Any backlink serves a purpose, but it’s important to also avoid using paid backlinks that are often going to do more harm than good. There are also nofollow links, which are useful but not close enough to how useful follow links are for SEO. Not all backlinks have the same power.
When a website posts a link to your site, the value of that link is going to depend on the Domain authority (DA) and the Page authority (PA) that is posting the link. The value of a website is often measured by their domain authority and page authority scores.
These scores are determined by the quality of the content of a website and many other factors, but if you can get a backlink from a website with a high DA and PA, your website will benefit greatly. On the other hand, if the link comes from a new site with very little content and no updates, the backlink will be of little value for your SEO efforts.
Search Engine Optimization Services
You can also consider the idea of hiring someone to help you with your SEO. The first thing to consider is the kind of traffic you want to attract. If your site is looking to find local customers, the process is very different from what needs to be done if you want clients from all over the world.
Choosing a good SEO service requires that you look into the kind of strategies they implement and the customer feedback they have from past customers. A good SEO provider is going to evaluate your niche and help you by generating the content you need. There are several types of SEO such as e-commerce SEO, Lead Generation SEO and Local SEO, but the main element in all of them is that the provider needs to understand the niche.
DIY SEO
Some people are going to want to do some SEO marketing on their own for no cost. Even when you are able to do this on your own, you are still investing precious time that could be spent in other aspects of your business. This is something to keep in mind when you are starting any business venture. The Do It yourself approach is possible, but not practical.
If you want to do this, we recommend that engage in the following practices:
- Come up with a good domain that is easy to remember.
- Create a good logo for your business and make sure your image is brandable.
- Submit your sitemap to Google.
- Make use of Google Analytics to see how much traffic is coming into your website.
- Create content that uses relevant keywords from your industry.
- Check your new content to see how much traffic comes in from specific keyword combinations.
- Make sure that you avoid being penalized by the search engine due to spun content.
- Don’t buy cheap traffic services because they are usually going to be sending bots or useless traffic to your website.
- Be careful to avoid using images that may have copyrights.
- Work on our website design, loading speeds, structure and responsiveness.
- Create videos and post them on YouTube for more SEO reach.
- Conduct competitor research to upgrade your efforts based on your findings.
- Subscribe to marketing blogs to read up on the latest industry changes.
- Make use of automation tools.
The evolution of SEO never ends
One of the first things that you are going to hear SEO experts talk about is that this marketing strategy is in constant evolution. Being able to evolve along with the changes taking place in digital marketing is going to be crucial if you expect to be successful.
SEO continues to be an integral part of digital marketing and one that is considered the most essential for longevity. No digital marketing campaign can be complete without a robust strategy for SEO. This is why it’s so important for you to stay updated on the news regarding those changes.
Being one step ahead of your competitors is going to create a substantial lead for your business. SEO is often a full time responsibility for those who want to start seeing conversions online.
The best way to achieve fast results when positioning your site
While it can seem like a good idea to try this on your own, there are many reasons why this can be the wrong approach. Firstly, you may be overwhelmed by the many tasks that revolve around your SEO efforts. Your content needs to be plagiarism free and your analytics need to be interpreted in various ways to tweak and improve your strategies.
You also need to understand your market niche properly and the endless efforts that come with the competitive nature of SEO. Just think of all of those challenges and the time it will take for you to handle them day by day. The truth is that efficient SEO is going to take hard work and time, but you should delegate this responsibility to someone who can approach the process without trial and error, someone who understands the intricacies of Search Engine Optimization.
Mastering SEO takes years and finding a Search Engine Optimization service that is able to connect the dots and make things work is going to be essential for your business. Very few other investments are as valuable in modern times as an efficient SEO strategy.
Conclusion
Regardless of how you choose to go about your SEO efforts, the bottom line is that you need to create a good strategy that will help you climb the search engine ranks. We hope that this guide has given you some of the initial steps you need to consider if you want to achieve the results you want.
Now that you have a better idea of how SEO works, you can make an informed decision to get started on the right track. Once you reach a good position, you will see incredible benefits.