SEO in 2022: The Basics
Search engine optimization is used to increase the quality of content and quantity of traffic on your website through organic traffic.
SEO is Important because
- majority of online traffic is through search engines
- not using SEO will prevent you to achieve the required traffic for your website
- organic search results are seen credible and receive more clicks than paid ads.
Debunking SEO Myths
- content is not the only thing you need
- page speed is very important in terms of user experience, slower loading pages annoy users hence less dwell time on your page
- links are very important
- algorithm is more sophisticated now; higher keywords may backfire your content now
- buying google ads does not help you gain organic web traffic
- more pages of websites do not necessarily help in web traffic- quality over quantity
Two Elements that make up an SEO campaign
- ON Page SEO- any change you make on your website- such as updating the title tag on your page; changing the H1 tag; editing meta description of a page
- Consists of 3 Kings- Google extension to check the availability of 3 Kings in a blog/ website is SEO Meta in 1 Click
- URL- most effective tool for ON Page SEO
- SEO title tag
- Page title
URL Optimization
- Start keyword research
- Use the keyword with the greatest number of searches. E.g. yoga clothes
- Good URL: website.com/yoga-clothes
- Bad URL: website.com/yoga-clothes-men-women-children
- Always go for a shorter URL
- Avoid word repetition in the URL. E.g if the website name is yoga.com then a good URL would be yoga.com/clothes
- Never change the URL of your high ranking page- may lower site traffic hence lower ranking
SEO Title Tag
- Mostly filled out by Yoast SEO of WordPress- click on ‘edit snippet’
- Put the keyword in the title
- Try including single words
- Do not repeat words
- Maximum of 60 characters
- HTML: <title> Clothing| Yoga Activewear for women </title>
Page title- optimize it by using keywords
- OFF Page SEO- any change you make off your website, such as building a link to your website; getting business listed on an external directory; optimizing social profiles
- Backlink- it is the mention of your site on an external website- your site kind of receives a vote of confidence this way- helps in google ranking
- Anchor text- a clickable text that links one page to the other
- Should be relevant to the page you are linking it with
- Google looks at anchor texts while ranking pages
- There are five types of anchor texts
- Exact match- you write the page name of the page you are linking to as anchor text
- Partial match- a variation of keyword is used
- Brand- brand name is used
- URL- URL is used as anchor text
- Miscellaneous- generic terms such as click here
What are Do-Follow and No-Follow Links?
- Do follow link: the more the links to a page the more points you receive to enter in Google’s high ranking- Google’s Page Rank ranks websites; the more a website is authoritative i.e. BBC, TIMES, the more link juice is transferred to your website i.e. boost to your site- <a href= https://twitter.com>
- No follow links: links that do not count as something in the page’s favor- does not boost page rank- <a href= https://twitter.com rel= “no follow”>
What is the most important Google Extension to check On-page SEP
SEOQuack is the most important SEO extension.
What is Keyword Research and how to do it?
- Keyword is a search phrase e.g. chocolate cake
- Should be the main thing your website offers
- Keyword intent- user’s purpose behind using a particular keyword
- Short tail keyword- general search by user- 1 to 2 words e.g. yoga mat
- Long tail keyword- 3 to 5 or more words- they are more direct; to the point; have less competition for e.g. non- slip yoga mat
- How to find keywords?
- Google auto suggest
- Search options at the end of the page
- Keyword Tool
Creating Content for the website
- Google aims to provide relevant and useful content to user- algorithm presents websites that best answer user queries
- High quality content makes up to the higher rank in Google’s search engine
- How to come up with content ideas?
- Review your competitor’s content- page 1 websites
- Subscribe to industry related blogs, e.g. Top 10 baking blogs- they will give you many ideas
- What to avoid while creating content?
- Text wall- an overload of text on your website- avoid this- instead use headings, subheadings, pictures- consumers prefer websites that are more engaging, hence increasing dwell time on site
- How long should your content be? Avoid guess work and go with what is currently there i.e. what competitors are doing
- Take the average of the total words of the top 3 blogs/ websites
- Add in 10% more words
Google Algorithms
- An algorithm is a complex system that retrieves data and instantly delivers the best possible result to user query
- So far, Google have pushed 3 major Algorithms updates
- Panda- rewards high quality websites and decreases the presence of low quality ones in Google’s organic search- pages that suffered the most had the following type of content:
- Thin content
- Plagiarized content
- Lack of authority/trustworthy content
- Content mismatching search query
- More ads than content
- So many sites were penalized and a sudden drop was observed in site traffic and google rank.
- Penguin- rewarded high quality content and decreased sites that had manipulative links (backlinks that had no connection with content; an attempt to become artificially popular) and large number of keywords.
- Hummingbird- responds to user’s search intent behind keywords
- Panda- rewards high quality websites and decreases the presence of low quality ones in Google’s organic search- pages that suffered the most had the following type of content:
0 Comments