Search engine optimization is central to the success of a website, and yet it’s also a term that strikes fear into the hearts of newcomers.
If you’re a complete SEO novice, this guide will get you on your feet and explain the basic principles involved, without overwhelming you.
What Is SEO?
Put simply, SEO is all about adjusting your website so that it ranks as highly as possible on search engines like Google.
Whenever you carry out an online search, the search engine results page (SERP) is populated with links to different sites which are ordered according to their relevance.
Complex algorithms are used to determine whether or not a particular site is the best fit for a given search. There are lots of ranking factors involved in coming to this conclusion, and these are ever-changing.
Because Google and its competitors are constantly tweaking how sites are ranked, SEO techniques also have to evolve as well.
The most important thing to grasp upfront is that while SEO is often seen as being a process that caters to the aforementioned search algorithms, in reality, it’s about delivering experiences that are geared towards satisfying human visitors.
Search engines have gotten a lot better at recognizing high-quality sites over the years, and in turn, the old tricks which used to work for sites in the past have fallen by the wayside.
Why Does SEO Matter?
Without a well optimized site, people won’t be able to find it organically; that is to say, by having it appear naturally close to the top of SERPs.
You can of course use paid search advertising to get your links a position at the pinnacle of a results page. However, this is potentially more costly, and won’t be a good option for long term visitor volume growth.
The more visitors your site gets, the more it will expand its reach and the easier it will be to rank highly. It’s kind of a snowball effect and one which you should endeavor to kick start sooner rather than later.
You can of course outsource search optimization to a local agency, such as a New Orleans SEO firm or one that’s closer to home for you. But if you want to get started with effective optimization under your own steam, stick with us.
What Factors Impact Search Rank?
There are a few things to get right when it comes to SEO, so let’s look at each, in turn, to help you on your way.
Crawlability
For your site to appear on SERPs, it has to be open to crawling and indexing by the search engines. Crawlers are automated tools that scour the web and look for new sites and pages to add to the index of Google et al.
For improving crawlability, you can take steps such as keeping your site efficient, rather than having a huge number of pages when fewer would do. You can also ensure that pages aren’t dead-ends by including links for navigation on each, and by pointing all pages back to lynchpin locations, such as the homepage.
Content Quality
Good content makes for a great website, and search algorithms know this more than anyone. That’s why you need content that is of high quality in its own right, and also relevant to what your target audience is looking for online.
There’s no point in having a page that ranks well if once people click through from a SERP, they aren’t satisfied by what they encounter.
Answering questions thoroughly, and using unique, well-written copy to do so, is key here. Again, you don’t have to do this yourself, as outsourcing to an experienced copywriter is a quick way to generate content that will boost your site’s rank.
Keyword choice
While search algorithms have become much more sophisticated, they are still reliant on pinpointing particular keywords to match results to the queries of users.
That’s where keyword optimization comes into play. You can use research tools to find the keywords that your target audience is using, and adjust your content to include them.
The main mistake to avoid is over-optimizing, or rather over-stuffing your copy with keywords, because this can be penalized by search algorithms. The same goes for choosing keywords that are too generic. As an up-and-coming site, targeting longer phrases will net you better results.
UX
User experience (UX) covers a number of aspects relating to your website, including how quickly pages load, how easy it is for visitors to navigate around the place, and how adaptable the interface is depending on the device they’re using.
That’s why mobile-friendliness has been such a must for years now. Sites that don’t automatically adjust to smaller screens are going to struggle to rank highly.
Shareability
Another slightly nebulous term, but one which is important in the age of social media, as well as more generally for good SEO. The idea is that if the content you create isn’t just compelling but also shareable, it will be organically distributed by visitors in other contexts.
This could include being linked to other websites or being posted to social media, all of which will continue to build the momentum that your site has already accumulated.
The more inbound links from other places that point to your site, the better it will do on the SERPs, because it shows the algorithms that others are interested in the content.
The Bottom Line On SEO For Beginners
There are a ton of other aspects of a website that will determine whether it gains traction or stays out of the spotlight, but getting to grips with the core ideas of SEO will stand you in good stead, even if you outsource a lot of the work.
Most importantly, don’t think that search optimization is a done deal after your initial efforts. You’ll need to continually check how your site performs over time, and change it to follow SEO trends, or else it will stagnate and fall off the radar once more.
