SEO has become a hot topic in the ten last years and from what we see, will continue to be relevant for the years to come as well. We can see companies who were solely established to offer services in assisting other companies on this matter. Similarly, the SEO related job positions are ubiquitous in the hiring industry as every company wants their website to excel on the internet and rank higher for the relevant service they provide. So, what exactly is SEO? SEO, which is short for Search Engine Optimization, is basically the process of optimizing a website with the aim of ranking higher for specific keywords in search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and the like. But what does this mean in simple terms? Let’s say you go on your phone, and you want to check out Super Bowl odds. Once you search for it, the engine algorithm allows several websites that are related to the phrase to show up on the first page of the search. It is exactly those websites that come first that have SEO optimized their content best, so once you search for that phrase, they appear immediately as the most relevant results for your query. In today’s digital world, online visibility is all companies’ aim and, in this article, we will go behind the curtains of SEO to show you the mechanics of this process.
Keyword Research
As mentioned in the paragraph above, SEO works through keywords and identifying the keywords is the first step you need to take for SEO optimization. Of course, this is a time-consuming task because one needs to research about the topic and see what is out there, but also get the idea of which keywords is your target audience using when searching for a specific topic. Let us, for example, imagine that we have an ice cream shop website that we want to rank higher in Google. In this case, a successful keyword research would show us that the most common keyword phrase used for ice cream shops is “ice cream shop near me” and not something crazy complicated like “a gastronomical establishment that specializes in the production and purveyance of frozen dairy-based desserts in my area”. In such cases with businesses’ websites, it is important to know about local SEO and how you can best make use of it. Once you have your keyword research results, you simply need to create high quality content where in the most strategic content points, such as title, meta description and content body, the main keywords you have drawn from the analysis are utilized.
Link Building
Link building is another crucial aspect of SEO which enables your website to be a trustworthy and authoritative source for the information you provide. Thus, once your information is out there and ready to be digested by the audience, link building is the next step to follow. Other websites which provide content regarding the same topic that you are, and which are linking back to your website will contribute towards creating this status for your website. To illustrate it, think of it as voting for the best speech that was offered in the elections. If other candidates cite you and refer to you in your speech, that means that you had valuable content which is dependable and indirectly creates an authority about your speech. So, every mention of you is a vote for you and of course the aim is to get as many votes as possible. Likewise, websites get these “votes” from external backlinks in other reputable sources, which increase their domain authority in the search engines. If you are just starting with link building for your website, you might want to check SEO link building guides which will lead you through this process.
SEO Technical Aspects
In addition to keyword research and link building, there are a few technical aspects that SEO considers regarding your website. One of the most important technical components of a website that needs to comply with SEO rules is the website’s structure. So, the website needs to be well-organized and easy to navigate for users who, once scrolling through your website, can find anything easily. Apart from that, the page’s speed is also highly taken into consideration by SEO. I mean, to be honest, nobody has time for your website to load for more than 30 seconds and so users might avoid your page and then this will negatively impact your website’s ranking. In addition to that, it is also especially important that your website is also optimized for mobiles and not just desktops. Since nowadays most users access search engines via their smartphones, having a mobile optimization of the website will make it more user-friendly and people will access your site more.
Conclusion
On a final note, SEO is a complex and highly technical field that requires a deep understanding of how search engines work and a commitment to ongoing optimization efforts. By conducting thorough keyword research, creating high-quality content, building authoritative backlinks, and optimizing your website's technical aspects, you can improve your website's ranking on search engines and attract more traffic to your website.
No comments yet