Chapter 2: Search Engine Optimization Basics You Need To Know
At its most basic level, SEO is the practice of enhancing and promoting a website in an effort to boost the number of visitors coming through. Majority of visitors are expected to be directed by popular search engines and SEO configuration seeks to boost visibility on related search queries. SEO comes in many forms, and there are relevant factors such as the words used on your page or the way other websites link to you: in some cases SEO simply means the designing and structuring of a website in a way that search engines can understand.
But in addition to discovering specific phrases and terms for the engines and building proper links, SEO isn’t just focused on the engines; it’s also about making sure the sites are better for people. If you’re trying to figure out the whole SEO thing but find yourself more confused, don’t stress, you’re not alone.
Why Does My Site Need SEO?
This is because of the simple reason that majority of web traffic originates from a search query and the major search engines are people’s favorite method of navigation. This fact doesn’t change whether your website is meant to provide a specific service, product or simply provide useful information about a certain topic.
What makes search engines so unique is the fact that they can provide targeted traffic, which means that you can directly draw in people who are looking for what you offer. Once you understand that search engines are the roadway that facilitates all this, and learn how to make sure your site is found by popular search engines, you won’t miss out on the many marketing opportunities made possible by search.
A search query is the phrase you type into a search box in order to find information about something and your website needs to be configured in a way that its anchor text aligns with relevant search queries. For example if the website deals in stock trading then it would be in the owner’s interest to make sure the website gets displayed on the search results when someone types in a query relating to stock trading.
When site owners invest in SEO, it leads to an impressive ROI so whether having time or finances- or both- has the potential to boost your rate of return when compared to other forms of promotion and marketing.
Is it true that search engines can’t “see” my website without SEO?
Modern search engines are pretty sophisticated and use advanced algorithms to search for sites when queried but they still need assistance in order to crawl the web more deeply and provide users with the best results for each query. Remember that while there are proven SEO strategies to make sure your site gets thousands of visitors every month, the wrong SEO can get your site buried deep in the search results where no user will ever come across it.
Aside from making sure content is available to search engines, good SEO also enhances site rankings in order to make sure content is placed only where common searches will locate it. You might have noticed how competitive SEO marketing is, and companies that invest in SEO will have decided advantage over their peers.
How do I do SEO for myself?
SEO is fairly complex but once you understand the basics, it makes a huge difference. Information is free for the most part so education about SEO is available and can be accessed for free on the Internet through guides such as these. When you combine that will consistent practice on the same, you are well on your way to writing your own SEO marketing plan.
Depending on the time you have for learning this information and the type and complexity of your website, you may find you need an expert to handle things more smoothly. There are hundreds of experienced firms out there practicing SEO, and each one performs specialized SEO, where the efforts to raise visibility on the search engines is geared toward a specific target audience.
Some firms choose to take on a more specialized approach; other firms rely on a broader strategy to tap into the masses. In order to optimize the site for the search engines you may have to look at more than one angle and explore the different avenues available on the market.
How much time should I invest in learning SEO?
If you are serious about improving your search rankings and be familiar with SEO then it would be advisable to put in time and effort into it. There are three main factors you need to pay attention to:
- On the page SEO
- Off the page SEO
- Violations
As you will learn, within each group exist subgroups and each of these subgroups contains individualized SEO factors that you as a site owner should pay attention to.
Effective SEO factors have to work in combination. No single factor will be successful so it wouldn’t make sense to focus on creating a great HTML title if the content on the page is low quality. Likewise having hundreds of links can boost rankings significantly but that only works if they are quality links. Establishing multiple factors can increase the chances of success just as negative factors make it harder to achieve success.
On the page ranking factors
On-page search ranking factors are those types of factors that fall under the publisher’s control. Consider the type of content you publish, perhaps you provide a number of HTML clues that make it easier for people and the search engines to ‘see’ your website, and perhaps you’ve spent time creating effective site architecture to help the search engines. All these factors fall under on-page rankings and are within your control.
Off the page ranking factors
These are the factors that publishers do not directly control. A long time ago search engine developers learned that relying entirely on publisher controlled signals wouldn’t work so in order to yield the best results they had to gain more control. For example, some publishers may try to make themselves appear more relevant that they actually are.
Due to the high number of web pages in existence, search engines cannot rely on ‘on the page’ clues. The engines need to go through more signals in order to yield the perfect result for any specific search.
Violations and penalties
Understand that search engines want publishers to perform SEO on their pages because it can improve their search results. Major search engines provide assistance in the form of simple guidelines, videos and how-to posts as a way to encourage SEO practice.
But with all this training, publishers still engage in “black hat” techniques as a way to get to the front of the line and for this they get punished. Engaging in spam or black hat SEO tricks can get your pages penalized and the ranking dropped; in some cases the website can get banned from the search engine entirely.
These violations are basically little tricks that web developers use to exploit search engines into giving a higher ranking, usually by manipulating the search engine’s understanding of true authority and relevancy.
“Missing” SEO signals
If you’re an experienced marketer you might be wondering why other factors like bolding words or ALT text are not included. While these factors play an important role in the process, they are not, relatively speaking, as crucial. You can’t possibly go over the entire list of possible signals when trying to understand the search engines.
Google has over 200 possible signals and over 10,000 sub-signals, so with all that information the best approach would have to be one focused on the more relevant signals. The goal of this guide is to help those new to SEO focus on the bigger picture; and that’s why we’re deliberately avoiding addressing issues such as keyword placement or how much weight an H1 header carries when compared to an H2 tag.
Being extra specific on such factors can sometimes distract and pull you down the rabbit hole. So in order to gain more understanding, remember that pages need descriptive titles, and indicating page structure with the use of header tags is a good idea, and if possible top things off with well-structured data.
If you do this things well you will have addressed the main factors in HTML. On the same note, remember that it’s not about having a good reputation on Twitter as opposed to Facebook; instead, the focus should be on having reputable social accounts in general, which would attract a good following, generate significant social shares, and ultimately drive you to success.