Learning the Basics of SEO(Search Engine Optimization)

 

A.         What  Is  SEO?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.

All major search engines such as Google and Bing have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos, images or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is basically the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine. SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results (known as "natural" or "organic" results) and excludes direct traffic and the purchase of paid placement. Additionally, it may target different kinds of searches, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic. By May 2015, mobile search had surpassed desktop search.

 

 

B.      Why is SEO important for New Media?

 

In today’s competitive market, SEO marketing is more important than ever.

 

Search engines serve millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or for solutions to their problems.

 

If you have a web site, blog or online store, SEO can help you get targeted free traffic from search engines.

 

SEO Made Simple: This article talks about the basics of SEO

Search engine optimization is important because:

 

·        The majority of search engine users (more than 65% – see graph below) are more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions in the search engine results pages (SERPS). To take advantage of this and gain visitors to your web site or customers to your online store, your website needs to appear in one of the top positions.

·        SEO is not only about search engines but good SEO practices improve the user experience and usability of a web site.

·        Users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching, increases the web site’s trust.

·        SEO is good for the social promotion of your web site. People who find your web site by searching Google or Yahoo are more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media channels.

·        SEO is important for the smooth running of a big web site. Web sites with more than one author can benefit from SEO in a direct and indirect way. Their direct benefit is an increase in search engine traffic and their indirect benefit is having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.

·        SEO can put you ahead of the competition. If two web sites are selling the same thing, the search engine optimized website is more likely to have more customers and make more sales.

 

What are the main stages of the Search Engine Optimization process? For simplicity though, SEO can be broken down into 3 main types:

Technical SEO: With technical SEO you can ensure that search engines can crawl and index your website without any issues.

 

On-site SEO: Rules to apply on your site and content to make it search engine friendly.

 

Off-site SEO: Ways to promote your website or blog so that it can rank higher in search results.

 

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer- programmed algorithms that dictate search engine behaviour, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine when website ranks are higher in the search engine results page (SERP). These visitors can then be converted into customers. SEO differs from local search engine optimization in that the latter is focused on optimizing a business' online presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when a user enters a local search for its products or services. The former instead is more focused on national or international searches.

 

We’ve probably heard a hundred times that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a vital digital marketing tool, but even if you have a basic understanding of what it entails, you may still not have a solid grasp on this complex and multifaceted creature.

 

SEO is made up of multiple different elements, and knowing what they are and how they work is key to understanding why SEO is so important. In short, SEO is significant because it makes

your website more visible, and that means more traffic and more opportunities to convert prospects into customers.

 

Beyond that, it is also a valuable tool for brand awareness, building relationships with prospects, and positioning yourself as an authoritative and trustworthy expert in your field. So without further ado, here's everything you need to know about SEO and why it’s vital in today’s digital world.

 

C.      Some crucial and Important principles to achieve SEO: -

 

Attracting the right site visitors is still an extremely important barometer for business success. With 54 percent of consumers citing organic search as the way they have typically found the sites they visit, your efforts in search engine optimization (SEO) are extremely important.

SEO success is not an overnight phenomenon, you need to dedicate time and patience to succeed. It is critical to stay on top of the latest changes in Google algorithms and develop a strategy that meets your specific objectives. Although a big part of it, this goes beyond simple keyword analysis and takes into account the fit within your overall Web presence.

A strong SEO plan includes a variety of key areas including: a strategy with agreed upon goals, budget and tactics; demonstrated keyword research that analyses volume, competition and relevance; website optimization that adheres to SEO best practices; successful execution of content marketing, social media, directory listings, etc.; and the ability to monitor and evaluate website rankings and visitor analytics.

The benefits of a well-executed SEO strategy include higher website visibility ranking in search engines and more organic traffic to your website. Strong SEO also gives organizations qualified website visitors who go to your website based on relevant data, as well as inherent credibility in the digital universe.

Now let’s dig deeper into the core principles of SEO.

Ø  Link Building

Link building is almost always the most challenging part of SEO, while also the one most critical to implementing a successful SEO strategy. Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. The number of backlinks, the relevance of the linking pages, and the keywords that are used in the backlinks (anchor text) influence the position of your page in the search results. Links from the same domain only count once.

Natural links are links that are given by websites that choose to link to your content. Conversely, outreach link building refers to links created by emailing bloggers for backlinks, submitting sites to directories, or paying for listings of any kind.

Ø  Anchor Text

Anchor text is clickable text in a hyperlink. Your anchor text must be relevant to the page you are linking to as the words contained in the anchor text help determine the ranking that your page will receive. For example, click here, read now, etc., are all bad examples of anchor text. If you are writing about SEO principles, link on keywords related to that term.

Ø  Keyword Density

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a Web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization, keyword density can be used to determine whether a Web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

Ø  ALT Text

The Alt tag is probably the most important image-optimization factor. Alt stands for alternate and the text in the alt tag is displayed in place of the image if the image cannot be shown or is taking too long to load.

Ø  SEO-Friendly URLs

 

A well-crafted URL provides search engines an easy-to-understand indication of what the Web page will cover. While using a URL that includes keywords can improve your site's search visibility, URLs themselves generally do not have a major impact on a page’s ability to rank. A major mistake many websites make creating otherwise worthless URLs simply to include a keyword in them.

 

Here are a few key best practices:

 

·        Keep URLs as simple, relevant and accurate as possible

·        Avoid the use of URL parameters

·        URLs should be concise and never longer than 2,048 characters

·        When necessary for readability, use only hyphens to separate words

      

      ·       Use lowercase letters. In some cases, uppercase letters can cause issues with duplicate pages. For example, webcorpco.com/Blog and webcorpco.com/blog might be two distinct URLs, which might create issues with duplicate content

 

Ø  On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual Web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO that refers         to links and other external signals.

 

Keyword usage and targeting are still a part of the search engines' ranking algorithms,

and we can apply some effective techniques for keyword usage to help create pages that  are  well  optimized for search.

 

Use the keyword phrase:

 

1.       In the title tag, at least once

2.       Once prominently near the top of the page

3.       At least two or three times, including variations, in the body copy on the page

4.       At least once in the alt attribute of an image on the page

5.       Once in the URL

6.       At least once in the Meta description tag

 

Ø  Title Tags

The title element of a page is meant to be an accurate, concise description of a page's content. It’s critical to both user experience and search engine optimization. Always place important keywords close to the front, and ensure your title tags are descriptive and readable.

Ø  Meta Description

 

The Meta description tag exists as a short description of a page's content. Search engines do not use the keywords or phrases in this tag for rankings, but Meta descriptions are the primary source for the snippet of text displayed beneath a listing in the results. Meta descriptions can be any length, but search engines generally will cut snippets longer than 160 characters, so it's generally wise to stay within these limits

 

Ø  Content

 

Content is a vital part of SEO because it’s the vehicle you use to reach and engage audiences. For instance, if you owned a nursery and wanted to increase your visibility, you might publish a series of blogs about gardening, choosing the right species of plants, growing tips, and more. When a person who wanted to know about gardening went looking for that information, your blog would come up, and you'd be able to build a relationship with that prospect by providing valuable information. When the time came for that prospect to buy a plant, for instance, you’d be the first nursery that came to mind. Today’s content must be educational, but also interesting, relevant, engaging, and shareable. Content comes in a variety of forms, including:

 

·  Web page content

·  Videos

·  Blogs

·  Infographics

   ·      Podcasts

   ·      Whitepapers and e-books

   ·      Social media posts

   ·      Local Listings

 

Ø  Visibility and Rankings

 

·           One of the most important functions of SEO is increasing visibility, which means making it easier for prospects to find you when they search for something you have to offer. Visibility is directly related to your ranking.

·           The higher you rank on a search engine result page (SERP), the more likely prospects are to see you and click through to your site. The more effective your SEO efforts, the higher your ranking and the better your visibility, which is especially important when you consider that a quarter of web users never click past the first SERP.

·           Web Traffic

·           Increased web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO, and you increase traffic when you increase visibility and rankings. Consider this for a moment: nearly 33% of clicks go to the first ranking page, and the first five listings get over 75% of all clicks.

·           If you want more prospects to find your website through a search engine, then you need SEO practices that will help you rank among the top five positions, and ideally number one.

·           Authority

·           The concept of authority is relatively new in SEO, but it’s becoming increasingly important to search engines because it’s becoming more important to web users. Essentially, authority means that your website is trustworthy, high quality, relevant, and has something to offer. The more authority your site has, the higher your ranking will be, and the more prospects will come to trust your brand.

·           Creating a Better Visitor Experience

·           Another reason SEO is critical is because all the time you put into generating great content and optimizing your site with on-page SEO improves the usability of your site, and this creates a seamless and positive customer experience.

·           For instance, when you take steps to make your site responsive, it will make it usable for all your mobile visitors as well as people who visit from a laptop or desktop. Similarly, by increasing your page load speed, you'll reduce your bounce rate and encourage visitors to spend longer on your site. Nearly 50% of consumers expect a page to load within two seconds, and the longer the load time, the higher the bounce rate and the lower your conversions.

 

 

Ø  Growth

 

·        In the end, the ultimate reason SEO is essential is that it can help you achieve many of your business goals. SEO can help you build better relationships with your audience,

improve the customer experience, increase your authority, drive more people to your site, give you an edge over the competition, and increase conversions, which means more sales, more loyal customers, and more growth for your business.

 

A final note that’s worth mentioning is that SEO is important because search engines aren’t perfect, and if you don’t take steps to counter their failings, then your website will pay the price.

 

For example, if a site doesn’t have a proper link structure, then search engines may not crawl and index the site properly, and this can lower rankings. Moreover, coding errors can block search engines entirely, making it impossible for your site to rank, no matter how much time you put into other SEO efforts. Other common areas where search engines can run into problems include:

 

·        Duplicate pages

·        Forms

·        Images, flash, audio files, video, and other non-textual content

·        Language and Semantics