Once your website is ready, make sure it is visible to your potential visitors on search engines to achieve the highest ranking. At this point, you should aim for search engine optimization (SEO). This SEO guide is designed to help you navigate the wonderous world of search engine optimization.
Beginner's Guide to SEO Vocab
- Algorithm - search engine algorithms are complex systems used to recover data from their search engine index and deliver the best possible results for a query.
- Alt Text - a text description added to an image's HTML tag on a Web page to be shown when the image in the Web page cannot be displayed.
- Anchor Text - a clickable link in a hyperlink.
- Backlink - incoming links to a webpage.
- Black Hat - an unethical practice against search engine guidelines used to get higher site rankings. Referred to as Black Hat SEO, these practices usually end up with search engine penalties.
- Crawler - also known as a spider or a bot, crawlers are programmed to visit web sites and read the pages to create entries for search engine index.
- Destination Page - a page your users visit after using your internal site search box.
- Nofollow - a link that does not boost the linked page rank.
- Dofollow - a link that does boost the linked page rank.
- Meta Description - a snippet of about 155 characters which summarizes a page's content (a very crucial part of SEO).
- SERP - Search Engine Results Page.
XML Sitemap - a sitemap lists all the URLs for a site allowing search engines to crawl your website comfortably.
Why is SEO important?
Search engine optimization (SEO) aims to secure top rankings for specific keywords across various search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu and AOL. Note that most traffic still comes from Google.
SEO presents a significant challenge in digital marketing due to its time-consuming nature. Quality is paramount to search engines, and it's not something that can be determined instantly. Moreover, the constantly evolving rules of SEO mean that websites cannot manipulate their way to the top rankings.
Submit your website to Google
First things first, you should submit your website to Google through its Search Console.
Of course, Google will discover your website even if you do not submit its URL, but it will take more time.
An important SEO guide recommendation: if you make changes to your website, you should re-submit it to keep Google in-the-know and encourage the indexing of your latest version. You should also submit your website to Bing and Yahoo to reach a bigger audience.
How to choose the right keywords
Choosing the right keywords will not only improve your organic rankings on search engines, but they will also be your starting point for search engine advertising (via PPC).
Conducting keyword research for SEO
Given the importance of keywords, you should bear in mind the following aspects:
1. The number of searches per month
2. How competitive your keyword is
These two factors are what keyword research is all about. When searching for an answer or solution, potential visitors will often rush to Google. You need to put yourself in their shoes to try to understand what keywords they are going to type.
How to find the best keywords for your content or website?
We've compiled a list of proven tools to help you find keywords that benefit both your website and search engine marketing. Here they are:
Google Suggest
Google Suggest, often overlooked, is a valuable tool. As you type into the search box, Google offers popular suggestions, enhancing your understanding of the topic. Additionally, at the bottom of each search page, you'll find a "searches related to" section, providing further keyword ideas. However, don’t rely solely on Google Suggest, as it is quite limited.
Google Trends
To watch rising and falling trends, use Google Trends. If search volume is rising for a specific term, you will have an open door to create quality content centered around your keyword and a better chance of ranking before it becomes too popular.
Google Keyword Planner tool
Keyword Planner should be your go-to tool for keyword inspiration. Once you’ve signed up for a free Ads account, head over to Tools and click Keyword Planner. Here you should select the ‘Search for New Keyword’ option. Simply enter a word or phrase you want to get ideas for and voila! After hitting the ‘Get Ideas’ button, you’ll be presented with two options: a) ad group ideas and b) keyword ideas.
Meta titles and meta descriptions
When visitors spot your website's title, they quickly decide whether to click. The meta title and description are key here, shaping their choice. Customize these elements to showcase your site effectively on search engines. Keep them concise, ensuring they encapsulate key information within recommended character limits. Each page should have a unique title and description to avoid Google's aversion to duplicate content.
Craft your title within 50-60 characters to maintain visibility in search results. Exceeding this limit may result in Google truncating your title. For meta descriptions, aim for descriptive, relevant content, staying around 150 characters. Use keywords judiciously; once is usually sufficient.
The art of link building
Building links via other websites is crucial for your SEO success, so you will need to invest time and energy to achieve this goal. Before you set off on your link acquisition journey, arm yourself with creativity and patience. To help you decide how to build links that best reflect your brand, check out the basic types of link building.
Natural Backlinks
If your website content is appealing, other sources will link to you more easily than you thought - and oftentimes, for free. However, you will need to craft enticing original content and promote it if you want someone to pick it up and give you a backlink.
Non-editorial link building
Even though these links can be the easiest to get, you need to be very careful not to be spammy, otherwise Google will penalize you, and your ranking will be affected.
Running a blog
A dynamic company blog is invaluable for onsite SEO. When filled with informative, original content, it boosts your chances of attracting natural backlinks and social media mentions. Maintaining such a blog is key to cultivating trust with your online audience and potential customers. Companies such as Buffer, HubSpot and Intercom will give you a taste of what makes an appealing blog.
8 tools you need to optimize your website
To obtain a deeper insight into search engine marketing, and especially search engine optimization, we have come up with a list of essential tools that will allow you to gain a competitive advantage and boost your chances of being found on Google.
Google Analytics
If you are a website owner, using Google Analytics is essential. This technical SEO tool will answer any burning questions you might have about your website. If your goal is to convert, Google Analytics is the perfect tool to gain a better understanding of your website’s strong points and where improvements can be made to reach that all-important end goal.
Google Pagespeed Insights
Your website’s load speed also affects search engine rankings. That’s where Google PageSpeed Insights is useful. This free tool informs you on how your website performs on both mobile and desktop. You will know your page is performing well if you obtain a score of 85 or higher. In addition, PageSpeed will also provide valuable suggestions to improve your website’s performance.
Google Search Console
If you want to monitor, maintain and troubleshoot the performance of your website, but also understand how Google sees and indexes it, consider using Google Search Console. This service is completely free and helps identify issues and perform necessary actions to optimize your website’s performance in the Google search results.
Google Mobile-Friendly Test
Another free tool is Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Nowadays, not having a mobile-friendly website can highly impact your search engine rankings. Find out if your website is mobile-friendly in less than a minute by entering its URL into the assigned field.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
If you need to identify technical issues that have a negative effect on website performance, the Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a helpful option. This application will save you both time and effort, crawling your site and collecting all the information needed to perform an SEO audit.
Semrush
Semrush displays the keywords your competitors rank for and helps you determine where to make improvements when it comes to your content. It also shows which of their pages obtain the most traffic. Unfortunately, its free version is quite limited, so you might want to consider upgrading your account.
Similarweb
SimilarWeb is a freemium tool and a treasure trove of insightful data about your competitors.It provides insights about traffic sources, keywords, referrals, total number of visits, visit duration, bounce rate, audience interests, social channels and display advertising.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most popular link analysis tools. By using this tool, you gain access to important data located on your dashboard. Just enter a website’s URL and you will see the quantity and quality of links pointing to both the URL and the website’s domain, the number of backlinks, referring pages and more.
Conclusion
Once your website is set up, designing a search engine strategy should be your top priority. Invest time in on-page optimization and start building quality links leading to your website. We strongly advise to avoid taking any shortcuts, or risk getting penalized from Google which will undermine your SEO efforts.