“What is SEO? How does it work?”
These are the common questions thrown by businesses especially those thinking to have their own website. This article helps in shedding some light to this most common question.
SEO Defined
SEO, which means Search Engine Optimization, is used to increase the number of visitors to a website by achieving a high-ranking placement in the search results page of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. It makes certain changes to your website design and content making your site more attractive to a search engine.
Basically, SEO is a process that organizations rely on to ensure that their site ranks high in the search engines for relevant keywords and phrases. So by improving your SEO, you can work to expand your visibility on the search engines to help you reach and engage more customers.
Now let’s understand the factors that can impact your search engine optimization ranking which include on-page and off-page factors.
Content Marketing
Content is effective whether you are attracting the search engines or helping your organizations make connections with site visitors.
If your site has more quality and relevant content, the more likely search engines will be to rank your pages higher on search engine results page (SERP). And if you have more engaging and effective content, the more likely visitors will spend more time on your website and possibly make a purchase.
Remember to create a well-written content and pick topics that your audience can relate to. The following are some types of content that can help improve your search engine rankings:
- Social Media Content
- Tutorials
- Blog Posts and Articles
- Videos and Audio Recordings
- Infographics (or other visual content)
- E-books and Whitepapers
You should also note to use SEO keywords and phrases — these are relevant words and phrases that a search engine user might use when looking for answers, products or services. These things can improve your chances of ranking higher on the SERP.
How fresh your content is can also affect your search engine ranking.Thus, it is important to create new ones, update or rewrite your old posts and make them more informative by adding information or figures.
Creating content takes time and effort. However, great and quality content can help your audience understand your organization and can result in high-ranking in search engine.
On-Page SEO
The on-page SEO factors are elements happening on your website. You have full control over these which means you can work to improve these factors by following best practices for SEO.
Some of the few on-page SEO factors that can actually contribute to improving your search ranking are the following:
Internal Links
Building hyperlinks or internal links to other content on your site can help search engines learn more about your site.
Image Name and ALT Tags
Include keyword or phrase in the image name and alt tag if you are using images on your website or blogs.
Meta Description
This will allow search engines to know a little bit more about what each page is about. The meta description on your website will also be used by your visitors to better understand what the page is about. This should include your keyword and provide details to tell your audience what the content is.
Title Tag
This will tell the search engines what your page is about. This should not be more than 70 characters including the keyword your content focuses on and your business name.
Sub-headings
Sub-headings can make your content easier for visitors to read. It can also help improve your SEO. You may use H1, H2, and H3 tags to help search engines understand what your content is about.
Make sure to avoid over-optimization otherwise, Google and other search engines will penalize your page when using keywords too many times. See to it that each content focuses on just one or two keywords to make sure that it is specific and relevant.
Other factors that impact SEO are off-page SEO and Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO.
Now that you have learned what SEO is and how it works, start making changes to your site to improve your SEO and your rankings on the search engine results page.
Remember to make your content valuable and relevant to your audience.
