WebHostDesignPostIf you have been running a website for some time now, you have probably wonder how to get more people on your site. There are many growth hacking techniques to do it, but the most popular way is old fashion search engine optimization.
SEO is a marketing technique to have your site rank higher in search engines. Companies send huge amounts of money and people have careers doing these techniques.
It doesn't have to be complicated and doing the basics in this beginner's guide and show you how to do SEO.
Search Engines
When you are searching for SEO knowledge, you will notice that people only focus on Google. There are good reasons behind it, as it owes close to 80% of all search engine traffic. There are others search engines that your efforts will also help, like Bing and Yahoo.
When someone enters a query or keyword in these search enginges, they go out and try to find the best website. By doing SEO, you are telling those search engines that your site has more authority. In result, your website will rank on the top of other pages.
It does sound easy, but there is a lot of strategy and time that goes into SEO. If you are willing to spend the time in research, content development, and outreach, you can do SEO.
Additional Reading
Keyword Research
Find the right keywords can make or break your site. You don't want a keyword that only website with big budgets can rank for. But you don't want to choose a keyword that doesn't get any traffic.
For instance, if you have a site about video games. Trying to rank for "video games" isn't very feasible. As sites like Amazon, Wikipedia, and Walmart is your competition.
Choosing a keyword like "ps4 games 2016 list". You now have a better chance ranking against sites similar to yours.
Additional Reading
- How To Do Keyword Research
- How To Do Keyword Research For SEO
- A Beginner's Guide To Keyword Research
Content Marketing
Once you are found your keyword to target look at what your competition is writing about. Your content quality needs to be better than your compeitors. What is something they left out or didn't mention that you can elaborate on?
Don't get caught up in the word count game but try to push yourself to be heavy informational. There are studies that longer content does get backlinked and shared more. If you write something that is valuable and people want to read. Your backlinks and social shares will follow.
You do need to spend some time making it more engaging. You need to add relative internal and external links, and images. Most people are visual learns and need something to pull them into your content.
Additional Reading
- SEO Content Writing: Write For People, Not Computers
- 13 Ways to Generate Quick Website Content
- Turning Keywords Into SEO Content
Onsite Optimization
This is an important step to making your page relevant to the search engines. There are tricks that have been proven to help push your website higher in the search engine rankings.
- Put your keyword in the title tag.
- Write an engaging meta description to encourage clicks.
- Have your keyword in your page URL.
- Use your main keyword in your h1 article title.
- Use related keywords in your subheadings (h2, h3 ,h4 h5)
- Have your main keyword and other related keywords through your content. Don't go crazy with this, just a few times.
- Have relative engaging internal and external links through your content.
Additional Reading
Link Building
There are hundreds of things that can affect your ranking, but link building is the strongest one. Link building is having other relative websites link to your website. The better the site, the better the link.
For instance:
When you are thinking about watching a movie. You read a lot of reviews about it, you will probably start thinking about watching it. But if your trusted friends tell you to watch it, most cause you will.
Backlinking is the same way with search engines. Having other sites that are trusted linking to you tell the search engines that you are legit.
Additional Reading
- Current Link Building Strategies
- Backlinks That Don't Really Work.... Anymore
- 19 Link Building / Outreach Strategies that WORK
Social Shares
Social shares are relatively new and are becoming related to ranking. They can drive traffic and user engagement. This is something can you can not only build more traffic but your reputation.
Social networks are becoming a one-stop shop for a lot of people. Having a fan base on those sites are not only are going to help your brand. They will help your overall search engine strategy.
As social shares and an increase of ranking haven't been confirmed. There are advantages to them. Your social profiles can rank for keywords in search engines. And major social networks now have their own search engines. This opens a new market for keyword engagement and ranking opportunities.
Additional Reading
- 10 Reasons Why Your Website NEEDS A Facebook Fan Page
- Best Social Networking Sites For Your Website
- How To Use Open Graph Meta Tags
Analytics
When you are starting SEO, make sure you start tracking your traffic and ranking. It takes a lot of time and work and you need to know if it's paying off. There are techniques that may help you site and others that don't. Knowing this can help you refine your strategy.
A simple way is installing Google Analytics on every page of your site. They give you full stats of traffic and where it's coming from. Plus onsite improvements statistics like bounce rate and time on site.
There is a lot of information on SEO. Starting with the basics will help you wrap your mind around the marketing behind it. Once you start moving the needle you can start on some more advanced techniques.
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