BEGINNERS GUIDE TO SEO 2020!

Whenever you are looking for some information or research work, which is the one go-to place to solve all your problems? We all know the answer to that. Of course, GOOGLE!

Be that as it may, since we know that the internet has a huge impact on our society and its users, every business should have a good internet presence to capture and become visible in front of their potential consumers and partners.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most basic and essentials components of Digital Marketing. This is your one-stop solution to become visible on the internet. It is the method of making your site visible to your potential clients by making it visible on top search engine result pages (SERPs).

Effective and great SEO activities and practices help you rank your website in the top search results for a keyword you wish to rank for.

How is this effective? Well, when someone searches for a phrase in their layman’s language on Google, it is called a ‘Keyword’.

A keyword is the main word around which your content is developed. Thousands of search results are provided by the search engine to the users. Creating keyword-definite content helps you capture your potential readers and offer your content in front of them.

Apart from these natural and organic results on the search engines, there is some space offered to various paid ads. This technique of creating and molding the search engine through investment to make your website visible is known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM). This technique is mainly effective in earning great revenue in the short term.

Usually, 94% of people click on the websites on the first page. Also, these people are the most crucial ones for any business. Hence, these are most likely the people who will visit your website and convert into subscribers/customers.

HOW DOES IT WORK

Previously, the ratio between the keywords used for search and those present on the website were analyzed to determine the page rank for a website. With innovation and transformation in digital marketing, it has been ascertained that this concept is not relevant anymore.

Now what matters is the referrals or backlinks given by other websites to your website. When the crawlers or spiders crawl your website, this activity indicates that your website is trustworthy and somewhat similar to the website being crawled.

As of today, millions of websites are registered on the internet offering some of the other kinds of information or services. To get their hands on any kind of information, 90% of people rely blindly on the internet.

This is why you need to digitize and automate your business over the internet. This will help you reach your potential customers/buyers/subscribers/partners.

TYPES OF SEO

Apart from the ways of finding websites and ascertaining page ranks, there are 2 major components of SEO. These are:

1.     On-Page SEO

2.     Off-Page SEO

In On-page SEO, you conduct various activities to optimize your website in any way possible. Be it keyword-driven content, scaled images, look ‘n’ feel of the website or any other aspects. The tasks performed directly on the website to increase its visibility on the search engine.

The various Off-page SEO activities are performed by marketers which include backlinks creation and various submissions. Some of these submissions can be PDF Submission, Image submission, Video Submission, Business listings and so much more.

AN OVERVIEW OF ON-PAGE SEO

On-page SEO is the method where a website is crawled (analyzed) by crawlers. These crawlers tell the search engine that what is our website about. That is why it’s essential to create keyword-driven content which will match your searcher’s search terms i.e., Keywords.

With the help of its various algorithms and the on-page SEO activities performed by you, the search engine curates a list of the most relevant websites when something is searched for.

There are various On-page SEO factors. Some of which are:

• Page Load Time: Page load time refers to the time taken for a website to open when clicked on once. Lesser the time is taken for the website to open, the better the SEO ranking for them.

• Title Tag: This refers to the Title of the website which appears on the top of the browser when a website is opened. This must be relevant to the content your website is offering.

• Meta Description: This refers to a short explanation of your website. It appears in the search results alongside your website title. Thus, it must contain your relevant keywords.

• H1 & H2 Heading Tags: The posts on your website must have Keyword-rich titles.

• URL Enriched Keywords: In order to improve your CTR, you must have a URL that is rich in relevant keywords.

• Content: Since we know “Content is the King!”, you should offer high quality and relevant content to your consumers. These must include your potential and relevant keywords.

• Content-Length: Your content must be in long-form rather than short-form. These usually perform better in the search rather than the short-form content.

• Latent Semantic Indexing: You must include relevant keywords and synonyms in your content. LSI helps search engines to understand what your webpage is all about.

• Image ALT Tags: Alt tags refer to the description of an image. They tell the search engine what is the image about.

• Internal Links: These links are important and relevant links that interconnect one webpage to another. These are within your website.

AN OVERVIEW OF OFF-PAGE SEO

Off-Page SEO includes the various activities of optimization done outside of your website. These activities are concerning the quality of your content and website. These off-page SEO activities can be of various kinds. Some of these can be creating backlinks for your website, performing various submission activities to boost your website, etc.

There are various Off-page SEO factors. Some of which are:

• Backlinking: It refers to a referral hyperlink from another website to yours. It tells the crawlers that your website is trustable and referred by them.

• Social Sharing: It indicates how much shares have your website content received on social media and other blogs.

• Quality Backlinks: When your website is referred by good quality websites, it increases the popularity of your website.

• Brand Searches: This is a method of using brand keywords instead of organic search keywords. This drives greater traffic to your website in less time.

• User Behavior: This indicates the various factors showing the time spent by users on your website. Factors like Pages views, Sessions spent, Bounce rate, etc.

These SEO techniques can seem hard to perform but even carrying out basic SEO practices can help your website drastically. It helps you to showcase your website to your target customers. This will lead to higher visits, conversions and sales!