Search Engine Optimization Tutorial

As the web becomes more crowded (and used by more people), website owners began wondering—why does ABC Mortgage show up higher on the results page of Google when searching for "mortgage" than XYZ Mortgage does? Thus, began the study of search engines and what makes them work. Before long, the early days of SEO - Search Engine Optimization had arrived.

What Is Search Engine Optimization

Put simply, Search Engine Optimization - SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a certain website within a search engine. Every change that occurs to a webpage will have an effect on how the search engines see it. It may surprise you, but Google knows when you update your page regularly, it knows when you publish a new article and it knows when another website displays a link to your site. Not only does Google recognize these actions, but also in some cases, these may affect how high (or low) your page is displayed in the search engine results page (SERP) for certain key words.

The best practices for SEO change rapidly as the search engines change their algorithm for displaying results. A few years ago, a page could rise to the top by stuffing keywords in where they did not belong or even posting paragraphs full of hidden words at the bottom of the page. These techniques are referred to as blackhat SEO and have always been frowned on by many in the industry. Changes within Google (and Bing, Yahoo, etc.) have all but eliminated the usefulness of utilizing these extreme (and annoying) measures. The search engines today reward quality pages that take advantage of high quality SEO techniques sometimes referred to as White Hat SEO techniques like the ones outlined below.

Keyword Research

The first step in any successful SEO campaign is keyword research. According to Moz, keyword research is one of the most valuable, most important and high return steps in your SEO or search marketing campaign.

While the short keywords, as listed above, are a great place to start, more important to most website owners are the long tail keywords. These are keywords that have three or more (usually more) words within the search phrase. Even new site owners can rank high in the search engine results page if they target these long, less used, long tail keywords. Some examples for a page like this might include: "SEO tips for new website" "SEO guide for 2018" "How to do search engine optimization the right way" or "What are the current best practices for SEO?"

One of the best ways to begin your keyword research process is by going to the source itself—Google. Google AdWords offers a keyword planner tool that can be a very important way to begin your keyword search. This tool will guide you step-by-step through the process of searching for and selecting keywords for your campaign. Most importantly, it will show you some hard numbers about how utilized these keywords already are. After all, if there are already hundreds of pages competing for a certain keyword phrase, you may not want to waste your marketing efforts on trying to capture that particular one. Ideally after a short while of “playing” with this tool, you’ll have a better idea what may work for you in terms of keywords—and you can move along to the next steps of the SEO process.

On-Page Optimization

Now that you have a good idea of the keywords and types of keywords you want to focus your SEO campaign on, it’s time to begin the Search Engine Optimization process. This can be done in a number of ways.

• Content Marketing. Content marketing is one of the key ways that website owners optimize their pages. By offering blogs, articles, white papers and other documents on the website, the page boosts the opportunity to use those all-important keyword phrases.
• Meta Tags. Adding meta tags to a website is one way that you can communicate to a search engine exactly what your page is about. The most simple of these tags is the title, which shows the search engine how to display this in the results, but you can also utilize a meta description, meta keywords, and alt attributes which all help a search engine categorize your page accurately for the best results.
• Page Organization. In addition to the meta tags, organizing your pages properly is a key to good results with on-page optimization. Creating content with headings, subheadings and bulletpoints makes it much easier for Google and the like to scan the content and accurately list it within the search engine results page.
• General Optimization. It’s important to remember that keyword optimization isn’t just for blog posts and other generated content. You will want to use keywords within all pages of your site. This may mean going back and updating your services page, about us and even your contact form. By updating your site as a whole, you’ll offer a more cohesive experience for your readers as well as improving your chances of ranking high in the search engines.

These techniques are really only the beginning. You are only limited by your imagination (and the "laws of the land" that have made blackhat SEO techniques virtually obsolete. With all your on-page efforts, it is often a matter of trial and error. Give it a try, analyze your results and update as needed.

Link Building and Promotion

Putting your content online and adding keywords to it for the search engines is really only part of the SEO process. After your site is up and running, you will begin the process of link building and promotion. The purpose behind this is that Google and the other search engines reward pages that have links to authority websites as well as pages that have been linked to by other industry sites.

Building links is not always easy. You will want to add them to your content carefully. Don’t go overboard or you will appear like you’re trying to stuff too many in there. Additionally, make sure you are linking to reputable sites because this will make your site appear reputable too.

The more difficult step is getting links to your site out there. You can do this in a number of ways. Here are just a few:

• Posting Comments. Visit other sites within your industry and make useful, informative comments on blogs and articles. Many of these comment bars have a field where you can include a link to your site. Do this. However, don’t spam and don’t post worthless comments just for the link, this is against SEO standards. You will get the best results when you are providing good information or comments.
• Sharing Links. A few years ago, link exchanges and link parties were very hot ways to get links out there. This has died down some, and in fact "organized" link exchanges are not recommended. However, working out a way to share links with other site owners (in similar fields) can be a positive way to boost your presence.
• Guest Blogging. Look for industry blogs and approach the owners offering to provide a guest blog post for them. This can be a win-win situation. Not only will the site owner get free content, but you’ll get a link back to your own page and may pick up new readers/customers from this guest blogging opportunity.
• Article Marketing. Along the same lines as guest blogging is article marketing. However, instead of approaching blog owners you work with online article databases. You’ll be able to write an article about a topic of your choice and submit it to the database. You will have links back to your site and can build your authority and credibility in the field. However, make sure you are only doing this with fresh, new content. Repurposing content will set off flags for duplicate content which may have a negative impact on your SEO success.
• Social Media. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram all offer the chance for you to post links to your best content and interact with your readers and followers. Like all other forms of link building, make sure you are not just posting for the sake of posting—provide good content.

As complex as all this may seem, this is only the beginning of what you can do with SEO. If you want some help with your project, you can hire Webociti direct and let us take care of your SEO Services for you. Or, we can provide one-on-one SEO training that will help you achieve more using the website you already have up and running. No matter what, make sure you choose to take action. Don’t ignore it—SEO is not going away. If you want to best success for your site, you will need to embrace these ideas and make them work for you. Make sure to read industry news from website like Search Engine Watch for good up to date information.

For more information about our SEO and Internet marketing service just complete the request form or Call us at a 678-892-7157

Learn More About Search Engine Optimization

 

Contact Webociti Today!

Webociti’s Number is 678-892-7157 or use our online contact form. or Schedule an Appointment (click box below) Don’t delay, call or contact us today!