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Search engine optimization (SEO) is nothing close to rocket science. It is the technique you need to rank your website or blog high in search engine results. This occurs whenever users make relevant searches on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Search engines use advanced algorithms and web crawlers to traverse the World Wide Web for the best websites to rank and display on search result pages.
Before implementing an SEO technique, make sure you know what your website is about, its purpose and your commitment to obtaining your goals. Here’s a short SEO guide for beginners with actionable tips to help you optimize your website for search engines.
4 Steps to Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines- SEO Tips for Beginners
1. Research Keywords Relevant to Your Website’s Niche
The pillars of successful search engine optimization are keywords. Customers search for services or products within their location. Think of potential keywords relevant to your website and write them down. Add your business location to any given keyword to create a basic keywords list for SEO.
Invest in an effective keyword research tool. You can choose between paid and free versions or a combination of at least two to find new keywords for your site. Search for each keyword in your list and take note of the keywords suggestions at the bottom of the search page and those that pop up as you type the keyword or keyword phrase.
Make sure your list of keywords has similar intent and meaning as that of your website. For instance, ‘How to do SEO’, ‘SEO tips for beginners, SEO basics, and the like are perfect keywords for a website with a focus on search engine optimization tips. Optimize your website for the keywords to rank high in search engine results.
Create a spreadsheet of the keywords against their relevant scores and search volumes. Use your analysis results of the spreadsheet to determine the most important keywords for prioritization.
2. Optimize and Create Page Titles & Meta Descriptions on Your Website Pages
With a list of relevant keywords, optimize the title and Meta description of your website pages. Although not visible, “<title> is the tag used for web page titles. Edit this tag from your SEO plugin or control panel of your website. Since page titles appear on search engine result pages, add a keyword to each title of your website pages for increased visibility.
The title tag doesn’t just show users what your website is about, but also attracts more traffic to your site. Therefore, your page titles should include one main keyword, the name of your business for branding purposes and your location. Placing a keyword at the start of your page title increases the possibility of your site ranking higher, and its click-through.
Add a Meta description to tell users more about the content on any particular page on your site. Whereas your website’s page title attracts users, the Meta description encourages them to click. Your page title and Meta description should be editable, concise and easy to read.
3. Optimize the Content on Your Web Pages
Add headers H1, H2, H3, etc. to your content and use a keyword density of 3%. Make sure the keywords are used naturally in the content and headers because search engines only care about well-written content that gives value to your potential clients. Create image descriptions and alt texts with relevant keywords for every picture featured on your pages. The content on your web pages should also be relevant to your site’s niche. Managing and optimizing the header tag is one of the important on-page SEO techniques.
4. Link Your Website to Relevant, Authority Sites
Invest in link building to add authority to your website, making it trustworthy. Make sure the websites you link to yours have a high domain authority of at least 40 because anything less could hurt your site’s visibility on search engines. In addition to linking your pages to relevant authority sites, also link your web pages to each other for enhanced search engine visibility.
Creating a business presence all over the internet can also go a long way in improving your site’s rankings on search engine results. Create business accounts with sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to ensure that your business has a profile on online business directories such as Yelp.
As a result, your business won’t just enjoy an improved online presence and better search engine ranking, but will also realize increased traffic and ROI.
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