
SEO BASICS (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION) – You might have heard of the term SEO before. But if not, the acronym SEO is just short for Search Engine Optimization, a process of improving your website’s chances of being more visible and maximizing it’s visitors.
Let’s talk technical terms first.
There are 4 things you need to know about SEO terms:
1. KEYWORDS – A set of words or phrases users enter into search engines like Google or Yahoo!
2. BACKLINK – These are external domains that point back to your domain page.
3. INTERNAL LINK – These are your links that leads to other pages within the same website.
4. ANCHOR TEXT – These are clickable text of a hyperlink. For example, click here is an anchor text and going to https://antonioaguirrejr.com/personal-coaching/ is the link. And while you’re at it, book a 1 on 1 coaching session with me for free.
Now that you know the 4 important terms, let’s go on to the 3 important things to remember:
– High Quality Content
– User-friendly Website
– Links going to your Website from other Websites
Let’s break it down further below.
1. HIGH QUALITY CONTENT – Google likes original user-oriented content that helps to solve customers’ queries and gives useful information.
– USEFUL AND INFORMATIVE – Running an e-commerce store? You should include context such as expert interviews, styling tips and new trends that provide added advice and info to your customers.
– VALUE OVER OTHER SITES – Pick on topics that are interesting to your customers and make sure that the content provides more value or a different perspective from other websites. Show the craftiness or the brief idea behind the materials you used is a good example.
– CREDIBILITY – Your brand’s reputation and trustworthiness gets an upgrade here if you have a biography and real customer reviews or testimonials.
– UNIQUE & SPECIFIC – The context shouldn’t be common on large number of websites (like this topic which I just made). It needs to aim to provide a good user experience, not just to rank well in search engines.
– ENGAGING & THOUGHT PROVOKING – You need to bring some flavor, life and a dash of color to your site by adding eye catching images, a good thumbnail photo and avoid too many ads that distract your readers. So does spelling, stylistic and factual errors that can occur. I’m a 1 man show, no editors yet, so I know there might be some minor errors on my end, but if you have the budget, make sure to hire a proof-reader and an editor.
– STRONG WEBSITE ACTIVITIES – Have regular updates, reviews and comments from your customers. These are signs of a strong website activity. So please leave a meaningful comment down below!
2. USER-FRIENDLY WEBSITE – Your user experience in your website is a key element in making your website rank higher. I went over as much as 10 website look revisions with my guys over at www.hostrident.com to find the perfect look for my website in my opinion. The key here is to make browsing your website as easy as possible. Customers have low tolerance with poorly designed websites.
– MOBILE FRIENDLINESS – All websites need to be mobile version friendly for different screen sizes (think 6″ to 7″ screens of phones, 10-12″ tablet screens). Failing to do so hurts your Google Rankings significantly. My website’s ranking improved dramatically with just this simple tweak.
– EASY NAVIGATION – A good website structure helps your visitors and Google navigate through your site. Avoid more than 3 clicks to go to any information or content to make browsing easy. Having a singular menu works too. (check mine)
– ZERO BROKEN LINKS – Invalid links makes your site less credible so make sure to check your links using online software.
– READABLE URL – Use easy to read URL links to help Google and people viewing the page to understand what it is about based on your link. Avoid having links that has too many weird character combinations in the end like yoursite.com/info/5843?=ag.ssaop and instead should just be yoursite.com/info/contact
3. GET OTHER WEBSITES TO LINK TO YOURS – Google likes referrals and your site gets a ranking boost if you get mentioned by different sites. If you want to work with me on a link back to your site and vice versa, just send me an email on my info page.
– HIT UP POPULAR LIKE-MINDED SITES – Popular sites that will mention you will help your rankings. Explain to them why your content might be interesting to their readers. Put yourself in their shoes on why they need to link up with you.
– SHARING FRIENDLY – Add share options on your website using widgets. Make sure to share this on your social media accounts with the links below to most social media pages!
– LINK WITH SOCIAL PLATFORMS – Have online communities give a s/o to your website. Facebook groups, Facebook fanpages, Twitter accounts and IG Stories helps. I didn’t include Instagram because they aren’t link friendly on the captions, only on the bio.
The basic rules for SEO in the past was simple. You could make things up to get your site to rank higher in a search engine. Unlike today, Google has more complex systems in place that punish heavily those that try to trick their system. Unusual behavior or content raises red flags and risk your site from being removed from search results, which is going to render your site pretty much dead.
Doing these simple tips and tricks will help your site rank up higher. I learned to improve the website ranking of my site by simply following the SEO checklist every time I make an article as a guide. If you’re not sure, work with an SEO expert for advice. Always remember that quality content is your main key to making your website flourish!
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TOPIC: SEO BASICS (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)
January 4, 2021 Author Khel Lawrence
I agree with this. All websites should be user friendly and navigatable. I always get easily irritated at a website when I don’t see what I am looking for.