Marketing and creating strong brand awareness, have taken the driving seat to steer in a direction like never before. Businesses globally are ensuring to serve their customers in the best possible manner and are networking rigorously to have a digital presence. With an explosive digital shift, Search Engine Optimisation has become a goal to crack in order to ensure one's business is recommended by search engines for ranking higher.
Before we dive in with methods of how you can enable one's business or even yours with great ranking tips for an SEO expert, let us understand the vast and interesting topic.
So what is SEO and how do we crack the formula to become an expert at it?
Let us unfold the ingredients step-by-step.
Did you know? 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
Yes! You read that right.
Search Engine Optimisation is an umbrella for marketing, link building, keyword research, search engine, quality content, performance measurement or traffic monitoring, sitemap optimisation, strategy, web design, feedback, ranking and connecting target audience.
A social media marketing agency can also help you in enhancing your online presence as it helps in many and of-course organic ways.
It's a process, an art and science to bring “organic traffic” for free and help various search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. crawl to recommend your content as the best solution to a user's problem.
The different types of SEO are: On page, Off page and Technical SEO.
On page SEO optimizes the content on the website, page.
Off page SEO focuses on promoting the website through different formats, applications etc.
Technical SEO includes crawling and indexing.
On page SEO or organic traffic boosts your page without you paying anything to Google for a visit. On the other hand, when a user clicks a paid result with a tab such as an ‘Ad’, the advertiser needs to pay for the click.
So how do we help our website get optimized with organic traffic? The solutions to rank higher in the eyes of search engine are:
- Make it easy for engines to understand what exactly your page is about.
- Show Google and other search engines that your page is worthy of ranking.
- Make a strong use of these profile creation websites.
The aim of Search Engines is to serve the customers, users with the most relevant answer to their solution from trustworthy websites and sources.
The web world is a pool of millions of pages wanting to be visited. To obtain this, make sure your content is relevant, trustworthy and consumable.
Just like we wouldn't want to waste money, time and efforts on those connects who might not turn into our potential clients, similarly Google strictly wants to provide the best choices hassle free to all its users.
With strict competition and endless content all over the internet, choosing SEO will help you optimize the site with these five focus areas.
- Visibility and Ranking:
Anyone who searches for a product or service is likely to click the ones available in top five options that the search engine provides.
SEO guides and helps you gain that visibility, rank higher, making it closer for clicks to visit your site and convert into clients.
- Web traffic:
For a business to grow it needs to connect with its target audience, this is possible when potential clients are able to search your website.
For example, your site isn't visible or lacks a digital presence; you might be losing out on major customers that could help bring sales.
That's where SEO comes into the picture, by making the site relevant and visible, automatically increasing the sales because the more approachable the site is, the more likely you will have your customers.
- Trustworthy:
When a website ranks higher or on top in search engines it creates an understanding that your site is able to solve the query. A higher-ranking score also benefits the site by generating trust from potential clients.
- User experience:
Having a clear site that communicates exactly what you are offering, what the site is about, along with an easy navigation for users, levels up the ranking score. Businesses are running to help serve customers, if it lacks clear, basic, quality content and better user experience the visit might be only till the home page.
- Growth:
Having a digital presence isn't tough in today's time but maintaining the site, having consistency by keeping all above focus areas in mind and creating a brand is the key! SEO is the growth factor to a business by making it visible, ranking higher and gaining trust in the minds of potential users. It then becomes likely to be shared and promoted by happy customers across all social media platforms.
You now know what exactly is SEO, types of SEO and five focus areas that the search engine optimisation will help your site.
Let us now take a glance at the steps to be a Search Engine Optimisation expert.
- Understand the basics: Stay updated and aware about how search engine's function, the type of content that users are looking for and tools that will optimize the site through SEO.
The key understanding of SEO in order to become an expert also includes basic HTML editing (Meta tags, H1, H2, Href commands)
- Hands on training: List a few websites you can work with to get the practical SEO understanding.
- Get familiar with Content Management System (CMS) platforms like WordPress
- Read SEO Blogs
- Take reference from different SEO videos, articles etc.
- Train and get certified.
The two main strategies and difference one must understand in SEO are:
Black Hat and White Hat Strategies.
Black Hat Strategy includes duplicate content, invisible and stuffed keywords, cloaking and redirecting the user to another site and links from site with non-relevant content.
White Hat Strategy includes relevant content, well-labelled images, complete sentences with grammar, relevant links, and unique page titles.
Here's another important aspect of SEO: Keyword optimization
Keyword optimisation is also termed as keyword research that researches, analyses, locates and chooses the best keywords to drive qualified traffic from various search engines. It’s a crucial step to select the right keywords for both paid and organic search. On boarding keyword optimisation expands the reach and requires consistency in keyword analysis and database in order to drive sales and grow.
Keywords are to be included in: Title tag, meta description, URL, images and content.
1. Find relevant keywords and check how these queries fit into your business
2. Just like choosing the right ingredients for a dish, check accurate keywords on tools for ranking higher.
3. Take references on tools to check the traffic of those particular keywords
4. Avoid using unnecessary keywords, key word stuffing etc.
5. Optimize your Title tag and Meta description (add a creative description to grab the consumers attention)
6. Use primary keyword in the title for website content.
Formula to grab search engine's attention
=relevant keywords+ website content+ solving consumers search query
Due to keyword optimisation being a tough task many skip this step, in search engine marketing but one must not forget that if the site doesn't use keywords which customers are searching for, the business will not be found followed by no traffic, no sales, no growth.
How does keyword optimisation benefit?
- Measures traffic potential
- Drives qualified traffic to the website
- Writes effective content
- Understand user behavior
Let us have a look at various Search Engine Optimisation tools that can create a strong pillar in search engine marketing:
- Ahrefs
- Google search console
- SEMRush
- KWFinder
- Moz Pro
- Ubersuggest
- Google trends
- SEOQuake
- Keywords everywhere
- Screaming frog
- Google Analytics
- MozCast
THE SEO FUNNEL
Let us summarise the SEO concept with this funnel by Improve & Grow, LLC
The SEO funnel consists of three major divisions: Awareness, Consideration and Decision.
- Awareness:
Awareness can be created through Organic SEO, PPC (paid ads), social media, Referral traffic which includes blogs, images, informative videos etc.
This stage then connects Consideration with display remarketing ads
- Consideration: eBooks, emails, and etc.
With email marketing campaign decisions are made.
- Decision: landing pages, conversion forms etc.
The funnel then creates qualified leads.
SEO is a vast concept so keep practicing and learning in order to become a pro at it. Rightly quoted by Neil Patel, “People aren’t signing up to your list because they like you. They're signing up because they believe you can help them with their problem.”
