You’ve heard the term SEO OPTIMIZATION and want to know what it is. Maybe you’ve already read various SEO tutorials and still don’t know where to start.
In this article, I will explain what SEO is and describe the necessary steps of SEO optimization so that your website can move to the top of search results.
One of the most fundamental concepts to grasp in order to succeed online is how to optimize your website.
What is SEO? Website optimization
SEO is an abbreviation of the English term Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of editing or optimizing websites so that they are easily found on the Internet and receive natural traffic from search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
SEO is not magic. It is just a set of specific rules and procedures that you can learn.
So if you have a beautiful website and are worried that no visitors will come, then it is the right time for SEO optimization for search engines.
Learn SEO optimization, and free SEO tutorials are also available.
Properly executed website optimization leads to increased website traffic in the long term. How to optimize your SEO for free is covered in the following guide.
Benefits of SEO: optimization of the website for search engines
SEO has three huge benefits:
1. Free admission
The traffic obtained through SEO optimization is free (except for the amount you pay to the SEO agency if you do not optimize your site, e.g., according to this guide).
SEO is one of the best options to increase website traffic for free.
2. Stable or increasing traffic
Organic website traffic is very constant. You don’t need to invest in other advertising channels. You can reach a huge number of people you would not reach with, for example, a Facebook post.
3. At the right moment
And the best part is that your target audience will find you when they need your services.
A practical example:
Imagine choosing balcony doors for your new home. This is something you only deal with a few times in your life.
You are faced with whether to buy sliding or opening doors.
I can’t imagine that a company that manufactures balcony doors would be in permanent contact with you via e-mail marketing. Or that you would follow a window and door manufacturer’s page on Facebook.
In this case, advertising on Bing, Google, or Facebook would make sense.
But you are not looking for a manufacturer in the first phase. There are enough of them. You are looking for a solution to your problem: which door to choose.
As a door manufacturer, you can reach your customers with a useful and keyword-optimized article that evaluates the pros and cons of different types of doors. You add a request form or a discount code, so you don’t miss a visitor anymore.
But SEO also has its disadvantages:
Even the most well-executed search engine optimization takes time to show. Several weeks, sometimes even months. It depends on the competition in the area.
It is no longer the case that you create a page; since then, traffic has only grown. Nowadays, every page needs to be updated, added a paragraph, or edited at least once a year. I’ll get to that later.
Improper keyword analysis can result in your website never getting traffic from search engines.
SEO optimization of pages for search engines: how to SEO a website
Now that you understand what SEO is and what its benefits are, we can explain how to SEO a website.
It would be best to address SEO before you start building a website. Why?
I always thought that writing a quality article and people would find it.
However, in today’s competitive age on the Internet, no one will find you without a properly performed keyword analysis, website structure design, and appropriate site optimization for search engines. And that would be a shame because you certainly have something to offer your customers.
Therefore, if you plan to create your website yourself, it is important that you, first of all, have your domain, the pages are responsive, and the chosen editor allows the optimization of the pages. Check out this comprehensive guide, “What is a Domain.”
SEO optimization for search engines
Before we start with SEO basics, let’s look at how internet search engines work.
The most well-known web search engines certainly include Google, followed by Bing and Yahoo.
Every day, several billion searches are performed on Google. People are looking for information, services, and products.
Did you know that approximately 91% of websites do not have organic traffic from any search engine?
So how do you become one of the 9% who will get steady traffic free from web search engines?
If you are a beginner in SEO, this guide is exactly for you. You will learn what specific steps to take to optimize your website for search and move it to the first positions.
Think of the Internet as a huge library.
And you need to find information about growing tomatoes, for example.
Internet search engines will go through all the pages they have indexed (already crawled and stored information about) and list the web pages that contain the search term or a similar term so as to give the best possible answer to your query.
Each search engine has its unique algorithm, but there are certain basics that they all have in common.
So how does Google work? The following terms must first be understood:
- Browsing pages
- Site indexing
1. Browsing pages
Search engines look at web pages and use links to discover other pages. They go from link to link and transmit data about the websites visited by Google servers. Algorithms pay attention to new sites, site changes, and broken links. All this with the aim of providing Internet users with the best possible answers to their questions.
What can you do to improve browsing on your site?
Make sure you have the current sitemap.xml file inserted. This is because crawlers start with a list of URLs that they find in the SITEMAP.XML file on your website. Then the links from these pages follow.
2. Site indexing
When search engines find a web page, they evaluate important signals—from keywords to the age of the site—and crawlers record all of this in their search index.
Google’s search index contains hundreds of billions of web pages. It is similar to an index at the back of a book – it contains entries for all the words encountered on the indexed sites.
So if we enter our query How to grow tomatoes into Google search, we get an answer almost immediately.
However, the Google algorithm does not only take into account the search query but also other contexts: for example, the place from which we are searching. If I enter the query Restaurants, Google automatically understands that I want to go somewhere for lunch or dinner and lists restaurants in my area.
Read more: 10 SEO Tips
SEO Guide
The vast majority of advice regarding website optimization for search engines focuses exclusively on the so-called on-page SEO setting of the page, i.e., the strategic placement of the keyword in:
- headline
- label
- of the h1 heading
- and website URL etc.
Unfortunately, these tips are now outdated.
You may have noticed that there are also pages in the first places on the Internet that do not have the search query listed in the title or even in the text of the article.
For example, look at the listing of pages when I enter the search query How to create a website with a custom domain.
You may notice that this term does not appear in either the title or the description of the pages in the first place:
What is on-page SEO optimization?
Google is already smart enough to understand what a page is about using related terms.
Search engines today use sophisticated algorithms so that the results are as accurate as possible for each search query.
No one knows these algorithms exactly, but we know how this search works.
There are about 200 factors that Google takes into account when indexing a website. So, if we follow these rules, we can optimize the website so that it ranks high in search results.
What are the main factors by which Google evaluates a page’s quality?
I could start by listing where the keyword should appear everywhere. Still, even if you manage to perfect the SEO optimization of the site for the technical side (as mentioned in point 7 ), if the reader does not find the answer to his question, you will fall back into the deep end internet.
Therefore, I put valuable content and satisfaction of the user’s interest in the 1st place.
The intent of the question or a sufficient answer to what the user asked
The intent (purpose) of the query is the most important factor. The most relevant pages will appear at the top if we enter a certain search query into Google.
For this, Google started using the smart algorithm RankBrain. This special algorithm determines the position of your site on the Internet based on how satisfied users are with your site.
What can we imagine under this? Google can move your page up or down depending on how users behave on your site.
Google RankBrain evaluates it according to the following:
- click-through rates (how many people clicked on your page in the search listing),
- according to the time spent on the page,
- depending on whether the user takes action on your website (order, clicks on a link on your website, downloads a file)
- Or depending on whether he immediately returns to the search results and continues to search elsewhere for an answer to his question.
What can you do for better content?
First, you need to understand the search query. Why do people ask this question? What problem do they need to solve?
See your business through the eyes of a customer. Prepare an article that will give the visitor of your site a COMPLETE answer to his question.
Google favours useful content on a certain topic and can rank a page in the first place, even if it doesn’t contain that keyword.
Structure the article well, and insert images and video.
Use short paragraphs, and highlight important parts. If the text is very long, insert the content at the beginning.
Timeliness of content
Those days when you just had to create a website and leave it at that.
Nowadays, publishing any site requires regular updating and improvement.
You can’t expect to create a website and leave it as it is forever. At least where there is more competition, and you want to succeed in the leading positions on a long-term scale, the page needs to be supplemented with new information. I do this for my website about once a year or when I notice significant changes.
How do you ensure content is up to date?
It is always an advantage if you create your website yourself, either in WordPress or in one of the website creation programs. Always check that you are providing the most up-to-date information. Google will appreciate you for it. Please read our guide on The Best Blogging Platform.
Other factors affect your site’s search rankings
If I take it for granted that your website or blog is on its domain (a 2nd-order domain of the type https://www.financebode.com), then these are the factors:
- Domain age: For example, if you have a newly registered domain, it can take up to a year before Google starts taking it seriously.
- Page display (load) speed: choose high-quality hosting, and reduce the size of images.
- Site Responsiveness: pages display correctly on all devices: from mobiles to tablets and laptops to desktops. At the same time, the content of pages for mobile devices is the same as for large screens.
- SSL certificate: the website is secure. You can tell if the URL address starts with HTTPS.
- Site relevance: does your site focus on one topic, or is each article from a different barrel?
SEO basics: keyword analysis
A keyword analysis is the basis of any proper website optimization.
What is keyword analysis for? First, to determine how often a given term is searched for and how difficult it is to rank in the top search positions for this query.
When you are learning about SEO and trying to apply it, keyword analysis will take up a significant portion of your time.
In the previous point, I mentioned Google RankBrain and the fact that Google uses artificial intelligence to decide the position of your website.
So do keywords still make sense these days?
Yes, keywords are still important to search engines in 2023.
But compared to the so-called old-school SEO, site optimization is not just about keywords.
Search engines use increasingly sophisticated algorithms. Google now understands how pages are linked into a unified concept and how complete the content is on a certain page.
Proper keyword analysis will help you find out what people are interested in and prepare an article that solves their problem.
You may find that your potential customers are worried about something different than you thought.
An example of using keyword analysis:
Let’s say you are a company that offers a special organic spray for tomatoes against mildew. How do you reach your target audience?
First, you need to think about what terms people are probably searching for in connection with growing tomatoes.
Some tools tell me that an average of about 50-100 people per month are looking for tomato blight spray, depending on the season.
Other data are also interesting:
About 1,000 people search for “growing tomatoes” a month, and a slightly smaller number of people also search for the term “how to grow tomatoes.”
Our keyword will be: “growing tomatoes.”
So you prepare the article: 10 principles for growing tomatoes to achieve a stunning harvest. From there, link to another article describing the benefits of spraying your tomatoes.
Since keyword analysis is a fairly extensive discipline, I will cover it in one of the next articles.
SEO page settings: instructions for off-page and on-page SEO
So when we know what people are searching for in relation to our website and we know the keywords, we will optimize our page for those keywords.
Website optimization has two parts:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page optimization
On-page SEO page settings
On-page SEO page settings mainly concern the content on the website (copywriting) and the correct use of keywords in the title, headings, image descriptions, and URL of the website.
URL settings
If you use the WordPress editorial system, the first step in optimizing your website for search engines is to change your permalink settings – the so-called URL address – as soon as you start creating a new website or blog. E.g. for this page, the URL is this: https://financebode.com/seo-optimization.
But in the basic settings of WordPress, you will see a number after the domain name instead of the post name. This is not the real deal for website optimization. In the WordPress administration, choose Settings > Permalinks section. T,
this is where you choose your post title. The URL addresses on your website will look like this: https://financebode.com/post-title/.
I recommend that if you have already set the website URL once, do not change it. Other sites may already link to it, or people may have saved it to Favorites in their Internet browser for later reading.
However, if it becomes necessary (e.g., you have completely changed the content on the given page and the URL address is no longer related to it, or the page was related to some services that you no longer offer), then redirect the page to another page that makes more sense.
How to use keywords for better On-page SEO
Even though Google is smart enough today to know what the article is about, it is still important to strategically place keywords on the website.
Avoid overusing the given keyword in the text. In addition to URLs, use them in the following:
- caption,
- label,
- main heading h1,
- in the first paragraph,
- in the name and alt text of the image
- and then where it naturally fits into the text.
The title is the most important part of On-page SEO.
It can have up to 60 characters. It’s the blue text that appears in the search listing. It should contain a keyword and something that grabs attention. It can be a number or an appealing adjective:
E.g., 10 Rules for Growing Tomatoes for a Stunning Harvest
The caption explains the article and should be appealing enough to make people want to click through to our site.
The description can be up to 160 characters long. Insert a keyword naturally into the text and use it to stimulate the reader’s curiosity.
E.g., Don’t know how to start growing tomatoes? Read the most important principles of how to plant, water, and protect tomatoes from mold in order to enjoy a bountiful harvest.
Use the keyword in the main heading (referred to as h1). The heading can be the same as the headline.
Furthermore, the keyword should appear in the first paragraph, which can be similar to what you have provided in the description.
Also, name the images you put on the website with keywords. E.g. growing-tomatoes.jpg, how-to-grow-tomatoes.jpg, mildew-tomatoes.jpg, spraying-on-tomatoes-against-mold.jpg.
Off-page optimization
You don’t directly do these actions on the page or in its text.
Page Load Speed
The time it takes for a website to load is one of the most critical factors that affect your search rankings.
If a web page takes a long time to load, it will, of course, discourage the users of your site.
You can measure the page loading speed easily with this tool from Google. Enter the URL of a specific website page to see how long it takes for the page to load on mobile and desktop.
At the same time, you will receive recommendations on what could be improved. Quite often, the recommendations are about reducing the size of images.
Hosting
Undoubtedly, the speed of page loading depends most on quality hosting and a well-chosen template if you are using WordPress.
If you have visitors from all over the world, it would be a good idea to consider using a so-called CDN or Content Delivery Network.
In simple terms, your static files, such as images or CSS styles, are stored on multiple servers worldwide to reach your site visitor in the shortest possible time. I host all my websites on this hosting, which uses a CDN.
Linkbuilding
This is trying to get links to your site from other sites. Backlinks work like referrals.
The higher the quality of the links to your site, the higher Google will rank you in search results.
One option is to offer “Guest posts” to owners of quality websites.
Website owners are always looking for new content, and if they get one from you for free in exchange for a link to your site, both parties will be happy.
Add your company to LinkedIn and Google My Business.
By entering your company into the LinkedIn database, you create a company detail placed in a thematic category on LinkedIn, and these profiles are also visible on the server.
There is also a free profile where you can enter contacts, opening hours, photos, a description of the company’s activities, and a free website link. It is ideal for guesthouses, restaurants, and establishments you are looking for in your area.
Thanks to the profile on LinkedIn, people can easily and quickly learn what they need about the company, and you will get a backlink to your website.
Google My Business is a free business profile from Google.
So if you want to rank high in the search engines for a query related to your local business, having a Google My Business profile established and correctly updated is essential.
Your profile will also appear on Google Maps.
Add a blog to your website.
I don’t mean to add an article like you have a new reception in the company, but something practical and valuable for your readers.
If you are a wedding photographer, add, for example, an article on how future newlyweds should prepare for a photo shoot so that the wedding photos are as beautiful as possible. Or the ten most beautiful wedding venues in your area as made for Instagram.
If you are a beautician: add an article with skin care tips. Instructions on how to blog for business can be found here.
Publish a post that brings practical advice to your site readers and helps solve their problems. Content that delivers real value is key to success.
Such an article has a better chance of people sharing it on social networks and will naturally get backlinks.
Social Signals
Google has officially declared that it does not give any weight to social signals (shares of your articles on social networks). Because the results are easy to manipulate, you can easily buy non-specialists and followers.
But you can read somewhere that social signals are essential.
So how is it?
Sharing on social networks can increase your article or website’s interest and attract new readers and possible future customers.
It is up to you how you will continue to work with the users of your site. If you have a Facebook pixel deployed on your website so that visitors can later be reminded of you with advertising, or you use a customer magnet and continue to work with them through e-mail marketing.
Sharing on social media can help you get backlinks, which are essential off-page factors that directly impact your search engine rankings.
conclusion
This SEO guide describes the main principles of optimizing a website for search engines: finding keywords to prepare an article that your users and search engines will love, getting backlinks, and other necessary steps to higher search positions.
The world of website optimization is a complex one. Sometimes you will find that your site is slow to rise on the Internet or that it rises and falls.
If you master certain SEO basics and apply them, even a small change to your website can result in a giant leap forward.
If you follow this guide on SEO optimization, you have a good chance that you will leapfrog your competitors who do not have optimized sites in this way within a few weeks.
