1. What is SEO and how a search engine works?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility of your website in the organic search results of search engines. Its goal is to optimize the website to rank better on the search engine results page and attract organic traffic.
There are 3 factors you need to remember about how a search engine works
- Crawl
- Index
- Rank
A search engine works by crawling hundreds of billions of pages using its own web crawlers. These web crawlers are known as search engine bots and spiders. The search engine robots will navigate your website and fetch web pages to find content. The bot will follow the links that are made available on the web pages to find new URLs.
The search engine bot will store information in the database that it finds by crawling web pages and following links. This is called indexing. When someone enters a keyword, the search engine will retrieve the most relevant results from its stored database.
The ultimate goal of SEO is to appear on the first page of search engine results. The search engine will rank those websites higher because it believes they are the most relevant to the search query. It is possible to instruct search engine bots to avoid storing or crawling any particular part or page of your site for specific reasons. It is up to the bot, however, whether or not to cawl.
2. SEO basics
Understanding the basic fundamentals of SEO is crucial before practising it on your website.
The following are some fundamentals:
- Keyword research and targeting
- Relevant content that satisfies the search query
- Crawling your website
- User experience with smooth integration
- Link building
- Schema markup
- Title, URL, and description
People are likely searching for what you offer in the search engine, and you can rank for those keywords. SEO involves three main aspects. That is, on- page, off-page, and technical SEO. These three aspects of SEO cover the entire field of SEO.
3. Keyword Research
Now that you understand why it’s important for your website to rank on the search engine, let’s look at what keywords you can rank for. A better understanding of your target market, what and how many people are searching for, and how they are searching for your content, products, or services is the foundation of good keyword research.
Keyword research is the process of brainstorming important search queries that your customers might be searching for on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. keyword research should be the first step in all SEO aspects.
Analyzing what keywords your competitors are ranking for on the first page of Google can give you an advantage. There are various free and paid tools available for keyword research, such as Google Keywords Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, Mangools, Ubersuggest, and many more.
Using these tools will give you an insight into what people are searching for in reality, even the keywords that you haven’t thought of, and the volume and competition of those keywords.
4. SEO-friendly Content
For your website or page to appear on the top of the Google search engine, you need your content to show when a search query is entered on the search engine.
Not all contents will rank. Only content created to show searchers the topic they are looking for will be ranked.
Understanding the search intent is beneficial to deciding whether to go for that topic or not.
It can be anything, post, blog, infographic, product, or landing page. Your content should be SEO friendly, meaning it should be optimised in a way that satisfies the Google bot and follows the SEO parameters.
5. Internal Linking
In your content, you should give internal links to another page of the same website. Your customers should be taken to another page of the website to find relevant content.
Google will send robots to crawl your website by following links, internal links, and external links.
Internal links are links that connect pages within the same domain.
A high number of links pointing to a specific page will send a message to the search engine bot that the page is relevant. But it should be done in a natural way to avoid spamming.
6. On-page SEO
There is a saying or a joke in the SEO industry that every SEO professional is aware of. That is, “if you want to hide a dead body, hide it on the second page of Google.” Jokes aside, this statement holds true to some extent because your website is as good as dead if it’s not on the first page of Google.
Nobody goes past the first page of Google because their query is answered on the first few pages of the rankings. This is where on-page SEO comes into play.
On-page SEO is done on the pages of the website. On-page optimization refers to optimising your website’s content. Google will send their bots to search for keywords on your website. Using the same keyword repeatedly will impact the ranking of your website negatively. It is also called “Keyword cannibalization.” Although Google no longer tolerates keyword cannibalization and may penalise your website.
Make your URL, title and description attractive to draw more traffic in your website.
7. Link building
You have created high-quality content that satisfies and answers people's search queries. But quality alone doesn’t mean your page will rank on a search engine. To compete with similar high-quality content, you must obtain links from a reliable source. This will build brand authority and amplify your traffic.
To build trust with search engines, you need backlinks from credible and trustworthy sites. Links from popular sites carry more weight and trust.
There are two types of links: do-follow and no-follow.
Do-follow links are those where search engines are following that link and discovering new pages.
No-follow links are those where your links are not followed by the search engine.
No-follow links from a popular site can help you gain traffic, but they won’t pass the authority test from search engines.
However, the do-follow link is the one where your focus should be. because it passes the authority of the search engine. It simply means you’re telling the search engine to follow the link.
8. Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a one-time process where you set everything once and forget about redoing it again whereas on-page and off-page SEO require continuous check-ups and are an ongoing process. Technical SEO in general is more difficult than on-page and off-page SEO.
If you want your site to be ranked in search engine results, your pages need to be crawlable and indexable.
The goal of technical SEO is to optimise your website so that it will satisfy the Google bot and index your web pages.
Technical SEO can be complex and difficult for beginners.
In technical SEO, you can control or instruct the bot as to which pages of the site you want crawled and indexed.
A robots.txt file is used to instruct the bot which pages of the site you want to be crawled and which you don’t want the bot to crawl.
9. How to track and measure SEO results
After implementing SEO for your website, the next step is to track your progress and measure the outcome.
Start with a goal for your website.
After you’ve identified your primary goal, measure additional metrics that could support your primary goal.
Next, evaluate how people are engaging once they have landed on your site. Evaluate their visit based on the following: pages visited, conversion rate, bounce rate, time spent on each page, and scroll depth.
Google Analytics and Search Console are free tools by Google. You can track everything from where your customers are viewing your website to their behaviour during interactions with your site.
Other SEO metrics that you can track are domain authority and page authority, keyword ranking, number of backlinks, and quality content.
10. Productivity tools for SEO
There are many paid as well as free tools on the market for measuring your SEO productivity. Some of the most popular AI content generation tools are available in both paid and free versions on the market, including keyword research, plagiarism checkers, and tracking and analysing customer behaviour.
Here are the best SEO tools for 2023 SEO productivity for SEO professionals and business owners.
The best tools for AI content generation are Jarvis (now Jasper), Rytr, and Peppertype.
The best tools for keyword research are SEMrush, Ahrefs, Mangools, Ubersuggest, Moz, Google Keyword Planner, and SimilarWeb.
Plagiarism checker tools: Duplichecker, Quetext, Grammarly.
Webmaster tool: Google Search Console.
Google Analytics for a detailed analysis of your website. Install analysis and register with search engine.
What is SEO and how a search engine works?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid results. This is done through a variety of techniques, such as optimizing the content and structure of a website, as well as building backlinks from other websites.
Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo use complex algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of a website's content, and then use that information to rank the website in their search results. These algorithms take into account a wide variety of factors, including the keywords used on a website, the quality of the content and the number and quality of backlinks pointing to a website.
Search engines work by using special programs called crawlers. These crawlers follow links on the web and discover new pages. Once a page is found, it gets indexed and added to the search engine's database.
So, when a user conducts a search, the search engine uses its algorithms to determine which websites in its database are most relevant to the user's query and returns those results. Generally the higher a website is ranked in the search results, the more likely it is for users to see and visit it.
In summary SEO is all about making sure that your website is easily discoverable by search engines so that it can be easily found by users searching for relevant keywords. Search engines works by crawling, indexing and ranking the website based on the relevance of the web page to the keywords searched by users.
SEO Basics
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. The goal of SEO is to improve a website's visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. There are many different strategies that can be used to improve SEO, but some of the basics include:
Using relevant keywords in website content and meta tags
- Creating high-quality, unique, and informative content
- Building backlinks from other relevant websites to your website
- Developing a well-designed and easy to navigate website
- Optimizing website images and videos
- Ensuring website speed is fast
- Making sure the website is mobile-friendly
Overall, SEO is the practice of making website more appealing to search engines, it can help businesses increase traffic from relevant customers.
SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization." It's the practice of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid results.
There are many ways to improve your website's SEO, but mainly it can be broken down into two categories: On-page optimization and off-page optimization.
On-page optimization includes things like:
- Choosing the right keywords
- Creating quality content
- Optimizing images and videos
- Making sure the website is mobile-friendly
Off-page optimization includes things like
- Building backlinks to your website
- Creating social media profiles and promoting your website through social media
Overall, SEO is a long-term strategy that helps your website rank higher in search engine results, which in turn can lead to more traffic and potential customers.
KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword research is the process of identifying and selecting the words and phrases that people use to search for products, services or information on a search engine. These words and phrases are called "keywords."
The purpose of keyword research is to understand which keywords are most important to your business or industry as well as which keywords your target audience is searching for. This information can be used to optimize your website, content and online advertising campaigns.
There are a number of tools that can be used for keyword research such as Google's Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz.
When conducting keyword research, it is important to find the balance between high volume keywords, which are searched frequently and low competition keywords which are less searched but less competitive. For example, a keyword like "shoes" is a high volume keyword, but it's also highly competitive. On the other hand, a keyword like "handmade leather shoes" is lower volume but less competitive.
Personally, I recommend using a mix of both types of keywords in your SEO and content marketing strategy. And also it's important to keep in mind, targeting too many keywords with high volume may not be always realistic and targeting low volume keywords may not bring enough traffic.
SEO FRIENDLY CONTENT
SEO-friendly content refers to the type of content that is optimized to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal of creating SEO- friendly content is to make it easy for search engines to understand what the content is about and to ensure that it is relevant to the user's search query.
Here are a few tips for creating SEO-friendly content
Use keywords in the title, headings, and throughout the content but avoid keyword stuffing.
Create high quality, informative and user friendly content that provides value to the reader.
Use alt text for images and optimize the file name with keywords.
Use internal and external links to help search engines understand the context of your content.
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.
It's also important to note that, creating SEO friendly content is not only about placing keywords, but it's about understanding user's intent, solving user's problem, providing information and being user friendly. And also avoid creating duplicate content, as it will harm your SEO.
Overall, SEO-friendly content is not just about optimizing for search engines, but also about creating content that is valuable to the user, easy to read and understand and that answers their search query.
INTERNAL LINKING
Internal linking is the process of adding links within your website that point to other pages on your website.
Internal linking is important for several reasons:
1. It helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website.
2. It distributes link equity (also known as link juice) more evenly across your website.
There are a few best practices when it comes to internal linking:
1. Use clear and descriptive link text (e.g., "Learn more about our services" rather than "Click here").
2. Use anchor text that includes keywords, if relevant.
3. Link to deeper pages on your website whenever possible.
4. Use a mix of do-follow and no-follow links
It's also important to keep in mind, while creating internal links, to not overdo it, as it can harm user's experience. So, use internal linking strategically.
Overall, internal linking is a simple but powerful technique that can help you improve the usability, accessibility, and search engine rankings of your website.
ON PAGE SEO
On-page SEO refers to the optimization of individual web pages in order to rank better and earn more relevant traffic in search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes optimizing the content, images, videos and other elements of a webpage to help search engines understand what the page is about and what keywords it should rank for.
Here are some key elements of on-page SEO:
Title tag and meta description: These are the snippets of text that appear in the search results and give users an idea of what the page is about. The title tag should include your primary keyword and be less than 60 characters. The meta description should be a compelling summary of the page's content and be less than 155 characters.
Headings: Use headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to structure your content and make it easy to read. Use your primary keyword in the H1 tag.
Content: Create high-quality, informative and user-friendly content that provides value to the reader. Use keywords, but avoid keyword stuffing.
Images and Videos: Use alt text to describe the images and videos and optimize the file name with keywords.
URL: Use a short, descriptive URL that includes keywords, if relevant.
Mobile optimization: Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.
It's important to note that, on-page SEO is not a one-time task, but it's an ongoing process. So, make sure to keep an eye on your website's performance and make adjustments accordingly.
Overall, on-page SEO is all about making sure search engines understand what your page is about, and that it's relevant, useful and user-friendly to people who find it.
LINK BUILDING
Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks (also known as "links") from other websites to your own website. These links act as "votes" for your website and are one of the key factors that search engines use to determine the relevance and authority of your website.
There are many ways to acquire links, but some common link building strategies include:
Content creation: Creating high-quality, informative and engaging content that others want to link to.
Guest blogging: Writing content for other websites in your industry in exchange for a link back to your website.
Broken link building: Finding broken links on other websites and offering to replace them with links to your own website.
Directory submissions: Submitting your website to online directories that are relevant to your industry.
Social media: Promoting your website and content on social media platforms to attract links.
It's important to note that, Search engines like Google, have been putting less emphasis on the quantity of links and more on the quality and relevance of links. So, acquiring links from high-quality, relevant and authoritative websites is important for link building efforts.
Also, avoid buying links or participating in link schemes, as it will harm your website's ranking.
Overall, link building is an essential part of SEO, and it can help increase your website's visibility and traffic from search engines. However, it's important to keep in mind that it's not only about quantity but also the quality of links that point to your website.
TECHNICAL SEO
Technical SEO refers to the optimization of a website's underlying infrastructure, such as its code, hosting, and server environment, to improve its ability to be crawled and indexed by search engines.
Here are a few important technical SEO considerations:
Crawlability: Ensure that search engine crawlers can easily access and index your website by creating a XML sitemap and submitting it to search engines.
Mobile optimization: Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.
Site Structure: Organize your website's content in a logical and hierarchical manner, using a clear and consistent URL structure.
Canonicals: Use rel=canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues.
301 redirects: Use 301 redirects to forward old pages to new ones, to avoid 404s and preserve link equity.
Server response codes: Monitor your website's server response codes (e.g. 200, 404, 301) to ensure that pages are properly returning codes and are accessible to the search engine spiders.
Technical SEO can also includes Schema Markup, structured data implementation and also website's security and accessibility
It's also important to keep in mind that Technical SEO is not a one-time task, but it's an ongoing process. Regularly monitoring and auditing your website for technical errors and making the necessary fixes can help ensure that your website is technically sound and easily crawlable.
Overall, Technical SEO is a crucial aspect of SEO, as it ensures that search engines can easily crawl and index your website, which in turn can help improve its visibility and search engine rankings.
Overall these productivity tools can help you stay organized, automate repetitive tasks, and gain valuable insights into your SEO efforts. By using these tools, you can save time and improve your efficiency which will allow you to focus on more important tasks.
If you’re interested in learning more about SEO services for your business, get a free consultation with Web Infotech, Guwahati . Feel free to reach out to us!