We have prepared the following Beginners' guide to SEO for you to know about the fundamentals and essential techniques regarding SEO. By applying the explained techniques, you will surely get to see a higher ranking, increased organic traffic as well as conversions. You just have to go through this guide in sequence, and you will be able to know the role of SEO techniques and the importance of other marketing channels in SEO.
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Why It's Important?
Everyone who has ever heard of Search Engine Optimization knows that it is abbreviated as SEO. It is the process of enhancing the visibility of web pages to attain higher positions among the organic (unpaid) search results. When a query is searched, SEO helps in ranking your web page on the top of the SERPs. The traffic that is generated through an SEO source is always for free, i.e., organic. It is essential to optimize the web-pages for search engines as well as for the users.
Below are the reasons that explain why SEO is important :
- SEO betters up the usability as well as the user experience of the site.
- Most of the people click on the above five results appearing in SERP's, so it is vital to practice SEO to attain a higher position in the search results.
- If the website is being seen at a higher position among the search results, then people intend to share the associated link on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, etc.
- Users believe the results given by search engines and attaining a higher position builds credibility for your website to get more clicks.
- SEO helps you to perform better than your competitors, and due to improved optimization of your site, you will be getting increased sales.
SEO & Keyword Research
Keyword research is the primary element of SEO. It includes researching as well as choosing the suitable keywords that the users are likely to search in the search engines relating to your service or product. It is crucial to opt for the appropriate keywords to appear at a higher position for the given queries and to attract organic traffic. Research for the keywords that can be searched by the users, and are trending with time. Long-tail keywords result in the best while performing SEO, so opt for such keywords while doing the search queries. If you are running a small business, i.e., area based, then search for local keywords.
Once the research is accomplished, check for the search volume, and eventually, select the suitable keywords that have high or medium search volume.
You can also use any of the below-described tools to make the selection :
- Long Tail Pro
- Kw Finder
- Moz Keyword Research Tool
- SEMrush
- Google Keyword Planner
To make a higher place for the web-pages in the search results, there are approximately 200 Search Engine Optimization ranking factors that Google takes in the account to rank. But there are some of the essential elements, which are classified into on-page and off-page SEO factors.
Below is the list of them:
On-Page SEO Factors
- Meta Tags
- Website URL structure
- Keyword Proximity
- Keyword Density
- Internal & Outbound Linking Optimization
- Image ALT Text
- Website Errors
- Canonical Tags
- Redirections
- Site speed
- txt
- Sitemaps
- Crawling & Indexing
- Mobile Friendliness
- Breadcrumbs
- Addition of Tracking codes
- Text/ HTML ratio
- Schema Implementations
- W3C Validation
- Noindex
- Social Sharing Buttons
- No Follow
Off-Page SEO Factors
- Link Juice
- Domain Authority
- Trust Flow
- Page Authority
- Social Shares
- Citation Flow
- Anchor text
- Page Rank
Types of SEO
1. Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO includes the techniques that do not follow the Search Engine Optimization guidelines. Some of the associated black hat SEO techniques are, Linkspam, keyword stuffing, and cloaking, etc. It shows the outcomes quickly, yet there's low lasted growth in the site rankings.
2. White Hat SEO
White Hat SEO techniques do follow all the SEO guidelines. Some of the associated white hat SEO techniques are the preparation of quality content, implementing link earning methods, and manual research & outreaching, etc. The outcomes of these processes are very slow but long-lasting.
Google Algorithm Updates
The digital marketing industry is dynamic, and it keeps on changing with time. It is more centered as well as competitive in nature. If you intend to attain high search engine rankings and want to maintain it for a significant time, you need to follow Google Algorithm Updates.
Some of the major updates are:
- Google Panda Update
- Hummingbird Update
- Google Penguin Update
- Google Mobilegeddeon Update
- Google Pigeon Update
Website owners should own the knowledge of all these SEO updates in order to optimize the site by neglecting penalties on the website. It improves the DA score as well as rankings in SERP's.
WEBSITE SEO ANALYSIS
A site's analysis is important to improve the online presence, solve the technical issues, and grow the visibility on the search engines. You must go through all the step's regarding website SEO analysis including with the fundamental SEO audit checklist as well as the free tools. It is essential to optimize the site to better up the user experience and usability of the website. So the digital marketing experts should focus on implementing the SEO tips for web designing as well as development; they should resolve all the technical issues and broken links with the help of the Search console tool.
How to Increase the Performance of a Website?
There are several attributes, which are responsible for improving the performance of a site. These factors include average time spent on website, traffic, bounce rate, social sharing, and a number of visitors, etc. It is important to create an appropriate SEO strategy to take the lead in the competition and perform better than the competitors in the same industry.
To increase the functioning of the website, the latest SEO trends must be followed including with white hat SEO, and other link building techniques to attain useful results. The improvement may take some time, but eventually, the site will start appearing at the top in the search engine result pages. To amplify the performance to the most significant extent, monitoring of keywords' rankings is extremely important.
Traffic Measurement & Analysis
This is also one of the essential parts of the Beginner's guide to SEO. The digital marketing expert should add Google Analytics code to the website as well as keep track of the major key metrics such as average time spent on the website, traffic sources, conversions, bounce rate, and visitors. The leading landing pages, traffic details, and channels can be researched in order to link your Google Analytics account with the Search console to check out the collected search queries.
Make an SEO report involving the contribution of traffic provided through each channel, bounce rate, average time spent, keyword ranking positions, and new VS returning visitors. You can also set an aim as per the industry requirement and then track the associated conversion rates successfully. Recent results can even be compared with the previous ones to see the improvement.
Importance of Content Marketing in SEO
Content Marketing makes a base for SEO. That's why it is needed to give priority to it. Quality Content amplifies the SEO efforts by making it more compelling in front of the viewers.
Here are somepoints that can help in creating quality content:
1. By adopting SEO and content marketing, you may research about a trending topic in order to create an exclusive, relevant as well as high-quality content. It will support you in driving the significant traffic to the website, as well as amplifying conversions, and reducing bounce rates.
2. Content Marketing also assists in creating a provocative headline, which, in turn, results in increased traffic, high social shares, and decent open rates in an email.
3. High-Quality content is responsible for incorporating more links than before.
4. Content Marketing expertise helps the SEO experts to do the link building using various tactics such as guest posting, Yahoo answers, and quora answers, etc. it helps in building a rigid online reputation and improves the DA score of the website.
5. Content Marketing helps in optimizing the content appropriately by putting the keywords in the content in the most natural manner. It lets you integrate the long-tail keywords in the content by following the exact percentage of keyword proximity.
Role of Social Media in SEO
Social media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization go together in digital marketing. It increases the authority as well as visibility of the website in search engines listings. Following are the roles of social media that improve SEO experience :
- Link building through social media platforms enhances the credibility of a website. By regularly sharing the content of the website, time spent can be enhanced and thus, bounce rate can be decreased. These all avail with the strong signals for search engines to rank the site at the top in SERP's.
- Social media also helps to increase the followers base that turns out to be the visitors to the site. Visitors are essential for improving the visibility of a website.
- Social media improves the position of keywords in search engine result pages by using the same keywords or hashtags on the social media platforms.
- Social media, specifically Google+ profile helps in increasing the presence in local three packs outcomes. All you have to do is to optimize the social profile, form proper citations in order to keep the profile active.
- Social media helps in promoting your content and makes it viral. It results in making the site appear on the top in the SERP's. Search Engine Marketing
Integrating SEO as well as PPC to amplify the visibility, traffic and conversions is known as Search Engine Marketing. There are many benefits of the integration of SEO and PPC.
Some of the advantages are:
You may easily link Adwords and Analytics account to use the keywords for several SEO activities. It also helps in solving the issues of exact search volumes that Google doesn't show now. By the process of integration, you will be getting the keywords that have potential to bring traffic and conversions.
Ad copy generated by Digital Marketing expert helps in creating an attractive title while performing SEO. An excellent title for the web-page is essential to improve the visibility in the search engines.
PPC associates also help in creating an impressive landing page. An optimized landing page will assist you in driving the leads or conversions.
Local SEO
Local SEO is a potential way to promote the services as well as products in front of the domestic customers. It is vital to creating citations including Name, contact number, address, and website. You can form the appropriate citations for your business on Foursquare, Google my business, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and other online directories. Localize your content, as well as a site to get verified online reviews.
Some of the important reasons to prefer local SEO for attracting more customers are:
- Maximum people intend to perform a search to get the information regarding any of the local businesses. It is essential to optimize a local site for mobile, because approx. Mobile does 60% of search queries.
- Local search marketing generates a better return on investments in comparison to any other marketing channel.
- It is vital to creating the citations as well as business listings on the internet based directories.
- People intend to make a purchase decision after reading online reviews, so encouragement of the online reviews is essential.
- By performing optimization through Google My business profile, citations can be built, and reviews can be earned to let your business appear on the first page of Google and other search engines.
Link Building Techniques & SEO
Link building techniques have been evolved significantly. It has been important to create the quality links on authoritative websites instead of accomplishing the bulk submission on low-quality websites. Before building links, it is needed to check some of the attributes such as DA, traffic, Page Rank, and PA. While creating links, try to give priority to the users. Link building improves the authority of a website.
Some of the advanced link building techniques are-
- Citation Building
- Guest Posting
- Link Reclamation
- Broken Link Building
- Link Bait, roundups
- Building Links through Infographic
- Widget/Gadget Link building
- Outreaching by email to add links
- Link Building on Quora and Yahoo Answers.
- Blog commenting
Mobile SEO
Owning a mobile version of the website is the way to success, and will be preferred by most of the businesses in near future. After the introduction of mobile first indexing update, it has been compulsory to have the mobile version of a site. In other words, an entirely responsive website is must to amplify the visibility in the search engines listings. Some of the businesses prefer to use responsive design to provide mobile-friendly view of the website.
Below are a few components that are needed to improve a site :
- Resolve mobile related errors.
- Emphasize on enhancing Mobile ranking.
- Stay centered to optimize app store.
- Run the keyword research for mobile as well as to optimize the content.
- Adopt promoted mobile pages.
- Accomplish app indexing.
We hope that the Beginners' guide to Search Engine Optimization helps you in optimizing your website appropriately and assists you in improving the visibility as well as rankings in the search engines results.