If you want your site to be visible, you need to get to the first page of the SERP (search engine results page). Many statistics and studies have already demonstrated that Users would like to get an answer to their searches as soon as possible without wasting their time scanning Google’s results on the second or third pages. They will most likely stick to the first page and that’s why we need to be with familiar with the SEO basics for Google and optimize our website accordingly.
What is SEO exactly? SEO or Search Engine Optimization means increasing the quality of your web pages and website and thus increasing your website traffic without the use of paid ads. With the help of SEO you make sure that your website is more visible in Google’s organic search results.
So how will you get your page to the pole position?
This is a reasonable question since over 90% of Google’s traffic is generated through the results that come up on the first page that is through the top 10 results. If you manage to be among the first results (especially the first 3) on Google, you will see more traffic, more conversion and ultimately a general increase in sales. You may reach the first positions with the help of paid advertising tools (like Google Ads and Facebook Ads) but we talk about them in more details in a different post. In this article we are focusing on the organic search results. Let’s look at 4 general SEO rules that need to be applied to all pages of your website:
1. Website optimisation or webpage optimisation?
If you already have some experience with creating websites, you know that you need to optimise each page of your website separately because Google itself scans your pages individually as well. If you enter a query into Google’s search box, you will see that on the search results page Google will offer you specific pages of different websites. When optimizing a website, it will always be necessary to optimize your pages one by one. This will increase your chances to reach the top of the rankings with your relevant page and drive traffic to your website in general. You can then check GOOGLE ANALYTICS to see which of your pages is responsible for most of your traffic and, if necessary, you can adapt your strategy accordingly and apply it to the other pages of your website as well.
2. Finding the best keywords
Keyword research is the central element of Search Engine Optimisation and it involves finding the most popular words and expressions entered into Google’s search box on a specific topic. Once you have found the right keywords, you are ready to fight with the competitive websites. When it comes to keywords, you need to be quite specific about them. To give an instance, if you wrote a post about cameras and you chose the keyword ‘camera’, you would have to fight against technology giants and all the people working for them to write the best content ever, optimising their webpages and paying expensive Google and Facebook Ads. In this case ‘camera’ is not the best keyword to choose, it’s too vague and the likelihood of ranking your webpage on the first page of Google’s SERP is incredibly remote. Then what will be the strategy? How to get to the top results when there are so many giants on the market?
Remember to always choose your keywords wisely. In order to do that, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the 3 types of keywords: Head (1 word), Body (2-3 words), Long tail (more than three words).
HEAD keywords: the example of ‘camera’ mentioned above belongs to his category. These are words with huge volumes of research and therefore high competition but at the same time low conversion rates. Other head keywords include words like clothes, fitness, shoes, and so on. These words are highly competitive: though many people look for them every second all over the world, they can be interpreted in many ways and therefore there will be millions of web pages containing them. If a user enters the word ‘camera’ in Google, he or she may look for a camera repair, a certain type of camera like Sony or Philips, or for user guides. Google does not know the user’s precise intention based on a single word – as a result if someone types in a head keyword, the competition to satisfy the search is extremely high while the probability of conversion remains extremely low.
BODY keywords: these types of keywords define individual search intents better and this automatically means less competition and higher conversion rate. The competition is lower but less people will enter these keywords for their search.
LONG TAIL keywords: Long tail keywords are those that define search intent the most. They usually consist of 4-5 words or even more – a good example is ‘Sony A5100 black camera’. Long tail keywords help to rank better and have lower rates of competition than shorter types of keywords. A really useful tool to find keywords is Google Keyword Planner which is a free tool in Google Ads.
3. On page optimization
As discussed at the beginning, we will talk about the optimization of individual pages since each page must be optimized before the “launch”, that is before the site is made available on the internet. Page optimization is a tool that can be used both in blogs and on web pages:
Web address optimization (URL): Address optimization is a fairly easy task and we simply have to follow three basic rules. The URL must be: a) Readable (www.example/12gg22u12.com is not a good idea) b) Rich in keywords c) Short (avoid www.example/example/very long example/avoidlongexamples/neveruselongexamples).
Title tag and meta description: The title tag and the Meta descriptions are important ranking opportunities for the optimization of web pages as they can increase the chances of its positioning at the top search results. The best method is to include the keyword at the beginning of the title tag and limit its length to 55 characters. The meta description is displayed under the title in the SERP. When creating your meta description, it is a good idea to answer a question or offer a solution to a problem so the user looking for advice or solution can click on your page (and possibly stay there for as long as possible).
Content: When Google looks at your page and another similar page about the subject, it’s like looking at two shades of the same color. Still, the search engine has to decide which will get better ranking. Google’s most important SEO rule regarding content is the following: the page that is the most helpful to the user, the one that best serves their needs will be ranked higher. When a reader clicks on your page and spends quite a long time there reading your content is an indication to Google that the content you’ve created is helpful to your users by answering their questions and you can move up in the list of results.
Remember that a new blog post can take months to get a good ranking on Google. Why? The system performs a user test to test you, your website. If Google sees that the bouncing rate of your site is low, the search engine will reward you again. This process can take months, there is no golden rule that if you follow you will be at the top of the list the next day.
One more important advice regarding your content: always pay attention to how you present it to users. Make it easy to read, separate paragraphs well preferably using subtitles. Your content has to be easy to “digest” and really contain valuable information. Before you start writing a blog post, do a little research and remember to look at your competitors’ pages as well.
4. Off page optimisation through backlinks
Google classifies the pages according to the authority of the websites that refer to them. This means that a page that gets many valuable external links is ranked higher than another pages with low-quality backlinks. Good links tend to draw readers’ attention to a credible source of information. Making a difference between low- and high-quality backlinks is important because valuable backlinks can improve our web page ranking, while low quality backlinks can have a negative impact on the ranking of our web page. Effective backlinks have some common features:
The sites where backlinks arrive from should be relevant to your niche so the best option is to get backlinks from the same sector. It is also important that they arrive from authoritative pages, usually .org web pages rank extremely well. It is essential to apply anchor texts effectively. Anchor texts are clickable texts – when you click on the link, it will take you to another page.
How to get genuine and high quality links? The best method is to target pages, people with whom you might want to establish a business or personal relationship. You can create links in online web directories as well. Another possibility is to contact a successful influencer or blogger and “ask” for a backlink. Asking for a link does not mean “asking for it” in the literal meaning of the term. It is more like an exchange. Try to offer something to the blogger or influencer that has value and get the favor “reciprocated” in some way. What you want to achieve in this case is a link or nod to your website from him or her. What about paid links? Always be careful with paid links and avoid any linkfarming activity. Changes in the Google algorithm (Google’s rules for positioning websites in the SERP) have warned against these incorrect practices in the past and your website could be penalized or even removed from the complete search results if Google discovers you get links from websites created specifically to generate traffic to other websites.
Final thoughts
I have been wondering lately how the future of website optimization will look like. What changes should we expect? I did my research on the subject among the best US sites and it seems that the near future will see voice search as a central method. This could mean a substantial change in the world of Google ranking. Nobody knows what this change actually means. What I do know is that it will be better to be ready as the changes have been extremely rapid in the recent years and losing track of the improvements or (even worse) ignoring them would not be very wise. I hope you have found this short guide useful for your job or hobby and I wish you best of luck with blogging and growing your website.
By Patrik P