What is Search
Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a host of techniques, approaches and strategies to prepare your website to be found by major search engines. It is often compared to alchemy. Everyone knows what SEO experts do, but very few know how they do it. In fact, many SEO gurus fiercely disagree on the how part. Many tactics are available, but SEO is not a cheap endeavour, so one has to be careful when allocating valuable advertising dollars to it.you have to be clear on what you are trying to accomplish on the business side-focus, focus, focus!
You
have to reign in your zeal and prepare yourself for a gruelling multi-month
commitment that will require time, discipline, and money-be ready to spend time
in the trenches.
Finally,
you have to decide which tools and techniques will produce the best return on
investment (ROI). If you spread your resources too thin, you will fail.
If
you're looking to get yourself on the first page of Google's search results
immediately, this SEO guide isn't for you. Don't believe people who claim they
can get you on the first page overnight in an ethical way. Even if you manage
to cheat the system for a short time, Google's wrath will land upon you swiftly
and never go away. If you are serious about SEO, prepare yourself for the long
haul and do it right-your patience and diligence will pay off. There is truly
nothing complex about SEO. It rests on three principles :Valuable, relevant,
unique, timely content will rank well on search engines.The content must be
machine-readable in order to be found. SEO work takes time to produce results.
Let's
start with valuable content. Before you even mention the term "SEO,"
ask yourself, what do I have to offer the world, why is it unique, and why
would anybody want it? Do you have a digital strategy covering all your digital
communications channels? Remember that you are competing with millions of other
websites. Theoretically, you could spend lots of time on SEO and get to that
coveted first page just to learn that customers don't find your content,
products, or services appealing. Conversely, don't give up too fast. Many
business owners that have great products and services never get through to their
audiences because they don't bother with SEO. The axiom "If you build it,
they will come" stands eternally false on Google. The onus is on you, and
if you don't make a compelling case to Google, it will ignore you unless you
are the only one in the universe offering that super hot product (e.g., you have
a monopoly). So, produce content that stands out. Make sure you provide value.
Sometimes it is a sacrifice. You may choose to share valuable information that
your competitors may use against you. You may choose to take unique
perspectives that may incite a debate or even draw criticism. Be yourself, be
unique, and be interesting-you need to give in order to get. Provide more than
a sales pitch. Do a cost-benefit analysis that includes the value of brand recognition.
Remember that it takes time to see results, usually one to two months,
sometimes longer. Your ultimate goal is to find your competitive niche and
establish yourself as an authority in your area of expertise so you can
influence buying patterns. People will remember you and come to you when the
need arises. With respect to content, make sure everything you write is well
structured, clean, and free of factual and grammatical errors. Write using
plain language. There are multiple resources on this. It is generally
recommended that website content be written at the grade six reading level.
Sometimes it may not be possible for all industries, but do your best. Another
helpful metric is the Flesch-Kincaid readability index. It's recommended to
keep it above 60 (you can use this free tool). Be friendly, approachable, and
lighthearted. Use humour, but be careful not to offend and cross boundaries.
Always keep your audience in mind. Make sure the most important information is
at the top of the page so it can be easily located. Web users don't read; they
skim. Use headings and bulleted lists. Make information digestible, and avoid
jargon, cliches, and colloquialisms as much as possible. Make sure that your
navigation structure is task oriented and user friendly. Your user experience
must always take people through the happy path.
Help Google Find You
You
have valuable content, and now you're ready to move on to the next step-showing
search engines and humans how to find it. In this SEO guide, we focus on
Google, since it has the biggest search market share, but this is equally
applicable to other search engines. It's probably safe to say that if you rank
well on Google, you will rank well on other search engines. There are numerous
SEO techniques, but we prefer to focus on a few that have been tested and
proven in action:
Organically maximise the number of inbound links from websites with high domain and page
authority.
Make
your pages machine-readable by applying consistent on-page optimization for
your key pages.
Building Inbound Links
This
technique causes lots of confusion and debate in SEO circles but for no valid
reason. It's very straightforward and is based on the following
assumption-counting quality links pointing back to your website is the most
effective way for Google to determine the value of your website. Backlinks are
very much like Facebook "Likes"-a vote of social confidence. Google's
logic here is utterly simple-if reputable and relevant websites link to you,
your content must be valuable. One important caveat here is that the link
building must be organic. If you have a very rapid increase in backlinks over a
short period of time, Google may perceive this as spam, even if your efforts
are legitimate. Spread your efforts over a few months. There is nothing wrong
with doing link exchanges with your industry peers. Just make sure you avoid
link farms and spammy techniques.
Spammy
comments. Don't post a comment on someone's
website just to add your link. Comment with a link only if what you have to say
is relevant to the conversation and the link can be truly helpful to the
audience.
Avoid
link farms. These are sites purely created for
link building purposes. Adding your website to relevant web directories and
local listings is fine, but make sure you only work with reputable websites.
Our benchmark is DA 50.
Earned and Unearned Links
Earned
links are the cream of the crop in the SEO world and will generate more SEO
juice (ranking power) than any other medium. An earned link is simply a link
created by a third party without your involvement or persuasion. Google has
complex algorithms to figure out which links are earned. In our experience,
high-quality earned links are challenging to get, but that's the gold standard.
The next best thing to earned links is high-quality unearned links, which are
placed on web directories, articles, blog posts, and other shared media
resources. It's absolutely essential that the primary purpose of the backlinks
you add to your posts is to provide supplementary content that helps readers
delve deeper into your content and access various thematically related
components. Link quality is very important in the process.
Link quality is influenced by two
factors:
1. Reputation of the link host (domain)-the website where your
link resides.
2. Link text (anchor) relevance.
Google
has its own proprietary method for determining the reputation of a domain. It
uses a 1 to 10 scale to determine a website's rank. We rely on the domain
authority (DA) metric developed by Moz as it is more granular. It marks all
websites on a 100-point, logarithmic scale (the higher you climb, the harder it
gets). We use the Mozbar Chrome plugin to determine DA for our sites. The
metric's value can change over time, so make sure you check it right when you
need it. With respect to SEO, we prefer not to place links on any website that
has a domain authority below 50. We believe this is where cost and benefit
intersect. This certainly poses some challenges and makes our SEO work more
expensive; however, it gives our clients peace of mind and ensures their links
bring in high-quality SEO juice (ranking power). In the SEO world, quality
always trumps quantity. You will have to make your own determination on what
you consider a reputable website, as this surely will affect your SEO costs,
but we recommend that you not use anything with a DA below your own, and we
recommend anything you use be at least above 25 (especially if you pay for it).
Be very selective of where you post your links. If the host website has been
penalized by Google for questionable SEO tactics, this may affect you. Another
important consideration is the anchor composition. An anchor is a text link
that links back to your web page. It is extremely important that the link text
is in sync with the keyword and meta data on your landing page. That's how
Google determines link relevance. For example, a link named "all about
hamsters" pointing to a web page about "disco music" will surely
not rank well in organic search results.
Content
is truly king and even more so with the recent Google Hummingbird algorithm
revolution. Google's ingenuity became even more evident in the simplicity of
the approach-provide valuable, engaging, timely content and you will rank well.
Just a few years ago, Google could not afford the luxury of humanizing content
analysis due to the lack of computing power, but with the advance of technology
and the decrease in hardware prices, Google can now afford to analyze content
deeper and build logical, intelligent connections between various web elements.
Gone are the days of keyword stuffing. Content marketing is simply an ongoing
effort to promote and syndicate your content via various publishing channels. Of
course, the content-value and industry-relevance principles apply here more
than ever. One way to promote your content is by publishing articles, blog
posts, and news releases on relevant websites.
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