Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | A Step-By-Step Starter Guide

Through Search Engine Optimization we all know that the Search Engine Results Page (in short SERP) can always be better. And that’s why Google engineers, for instance, spend every day testing it, conducting hundreds of thousands of experiments every year, resulting in thousands of improvements.

For example, every time you search, there are thousands, sometimes millions, of website pages with helpful information. How Google figures out which results to show starts long before you even type, and is guided by a commitment to you to provide the best information.

In a fraction of a second, Google’s Search algorithms sort through hundreds of billions of web pages in their Search index. Especially, to find the most relevant, useful results for what you’re looking for. Even before you search, Google organizes information about web pages in their Search index.

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Whereby, the index is like a library, except it contains more info than in all the world’s libraries put together. And in order to determine the PageRank of your site, you can download certain browser plugins. Such as Open SEO stats (Formerly: Page Rank Status) for the Google Chrome browser.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (in short SEO) is a marketing discipline focused on growing organic visibility (non-paid) search engine results page. So, it is the process of improving the position that your website appears in the “organic” search results. For example, returned by site search engines like Google, Yandex, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

As a matter of fact, search engine optimization isn’t just about building yourself a search engine-friendly site. But, it’s about making your site better for people too. And basically, jmexclusives believes that these principles go hand-in-hand.

Equally important, sites that appear higher up in the results will get more traffic to their pages. Coupled with potentially more landing page visits, lead conversion, and product sales in your business. Your goal is to get to page one and ideally to position one.

But whether that is feasible largely depends on the market that you are operating in. Search Engine Optimization encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings. Including, drive on-site traffic, increased awareness through search engines, and your content listing on web pages.

Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

For beginners to SEO the definition may sound complicated, therefore, in simpler terms, search engine optimization is a way to improve your website. So that it will appear closer to the top positions in the search results of Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, ask.com, AOL.Com, Baidu, or other search engines.

It’s important to realize, the Search Engine algorithms take a number of factors into account. Particularly, to decide which web page should be shown in the first place, second place, etc. In today’s competitive market, SEO is more important than ever.

Bearing in mind, search engines like Google serve millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or for solutions to their problems.

Meaning that, if you have a website, blog, or online store, SEO can help your business grow and meet the business objectives.

SEO is essential because;

The majority of search engine users are more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions. Especially in the search results pages (SERPS). So to say, take advantage of this and gain visitors to your website or customers to the online store you need to in the top positions.
SEO is not only about search engines but good SEO practices improve the user experience and usability of a website.
Users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching, increases the web site’s trust.
It’s good for the social promotion of your website. People who find your website by searching Google or Yahoo are more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media channels.
SEO is important for the smooth running of a big website. Websites with more than one author can benefit from SEO in a direct and indirect way. Their direct benefit is an increase in search engine traffic and their indirect benefit is having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.
Lastly, SEO can put you ahead of the competition.

All in all, optimizing your website for search engines will give you an advantage over non-optimized sites. And also, you’ll increase your chances to rank higher. Below are the key elements and terms to consider in terms of SEO;

On-site SEO

These are simple tweaks you can apply to your website and increase your search engine visibility. If followed correctly, these 75 SEO tips will also improve the usability and credibility of your website or blog.

In addition to the above guidelines, the structure of a website is also very important for SEO purposes. If you seriously take into account these 2 factors i.e. website structure and the SEO tips, then that’s all you need. In order to help search engines trust your website.

There is no need to spend more time than needed with on-site SEO. Neither should you over-optimize your website or blog. Because it can sometimes (under certain conditions) generate the opposite results.

Off-site SEO

Besides the changes, you can do to your website (on-site SEO) so that it ranks higher in the SERPs. Whereby, there are other ways to improve your website’s ranking position. Namely, by using off-site SEO techniques.

Off-site SEO is generally known as link building but you may prefer to use the term website promotion. In fact, it is a proper way to promote a website that involves many more methods and techniques than building links.

In general, search engines are trying to find the most important pages of the web and show those first. Increasingly, when a user enters a search query. One of the factors to determine the position a web page will appear in the results is the number of incoming links.

Incoming links are a signal of trust. And depending on where the links are coming, they can greatly affect your ranking position. Either positively if the links are coming from well-known and trusted sites. Or even negatively if they are paid links, article directories, link farms, etc.

Keyword-rich Content SEO Utilization

One of the key tools that search providers such as Google and Microsoft (Bing) employ to determine your rankings are “spiders”. A spider is a piece of software that crawls the web in a methodical, automated manner.

They browse your website (and everyone else’s) to identify the actual copy written on the page along with things like the use of keywords and phrases. The extracted data is then used to determine the relevance of your site. In general, when someone enters a keyword or phrase into a search engine.

With this in mind, you need to consider the search habits of your target audience. And also, ensure that the terms they might use to find your business are reflected on your pages.

For example, if you offer physiotherapy services, your website content should include words or phrases that people may search for. Such as “massage“, or specific problems like “lower back pain” or other medical health and physical fitness topics.

Use Google Keyword Planner Tool

Remember that text included in images cannot be crawled by spiders. Although alternative text associated with the images is, so you may wish to revisit the design of some of your pages. A useful free tool for identifying your keywords is the Google Keyword Planner Tool.

This tool is designed to help prospective advertisers identify the most relevant keywords for their chosen market, but it is also very helpful when writing copy for your website. Once you have identified your keywords, ensure that they appear in the body of your pages.

As well as in the metadata of your page, which is the unseen data that gives the spiders key information about your page. This can either be done by yourself, with a little knowledge of HTML and access to your server, or it can be done by your preferred web designers.

Author’s Authority through SEO

As an illustration, Search Engine Optimization art and marketing specialty is here to stay. Whether to the old-school writers, professional content bloggers, or even the newcomers to the hungry writing crawlers and robots which make content friendly to the online readers.

A friend of mine feels that SEO is like a virus that is killing on various aspects known to the organic writers. To enumerate, you’ll agree that Search Engine Optimization was there long before the breakthrough of major website and blog design platforms.

However, marginal changes to the Search Engine Optimization is seeing long-term writers either hire SEO Experts or even dig dipper to match along. For those with the bulkiness of content ranging in years, it is quite a diehard effort in making sure that their content is SEO friendly.

The concept of author authority (or “author rank”) in Google Search has a long and somewhat muddy history. However, to the accredited content writers, it makes sense that Google would value the “EAT” (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) of content creators in its quest to judge the quality of content.

After all, wouldn’t you rather get a website design guide from a properly placed and experienced site developers than from some witty blogger(s) who keep Wikipedia open in a browser tab?

SEO Agent Rank & Author Rank

The origins of the concept of using a content creator’s authority and reputation go back to the agent rank patent granted to Google on July 21, 2009. The patent proposed a means of evaluating the contributors to various elements on a web page.

For example, by determining the identity of each of the contributing “agents” with a “digital signature” and assigning a score to each one based on other content associated with it. (For an in-depth explanation of agent rank, see this post by Bill Slawski.)

The agent rank patent probably would have faded into the obscurity of Google history had it not been for a new Google project unveiled in 2011: Google Authorship.

Quality Search Engine Optimization Essential Tips

There are many aspects to Search Engine Optimization. In particular, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand.

On the other hand, Search Engine Optimization has dramatically evolved in the past two years mostly driven by Google’s updates to its indexing algorithm. Google’s algorithm updates (code names: Penguin, Panda, Panda 2) now mostly focused on rewarding websites that develop relevance through quality content.

Rather than through using technical tricks to game the search results ranking system. Another key element that Google’s algorithm rewards are how many times the content has been shared and interacted with on social media.

Essential aspects of SEO are;

As a consequence, the power of SEO has shifted from the hands of technicians to the hands of marketers and of content producers.

How to Get Started with Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is nowadays more important than ever and it is necessary for every webmaster to understand the true meaning of SEO.

As well as, the potential it creates for every business. Search engine optimization or SEO, in short, is a set of rules that can be followed by website (or blog) owners to optimize their websites for search engines and thus improve their search engine rankings.

If you’re in the mobile phone space or travel, you’ll be fighting a losing battle unless you’ve got a sizeable budget to spend. However, if you’re offering a niche product or a service in a defined geographical area, you stand a pretty good chance of at least getting to page one if you are patient enough.

In addition, it is a great way to increase the quality of your websites by making them user- friendly, faster, and easier to navigate.

1. Website Content Coding and Structuring

Websites are published to communicate information through web pages. These web pages must follow certain rules and guidelines in their coding but also with the content that is placed on them to maximize reach and keyword ranking on Search Engines.

These guidelines are mostly related to how the page code is structured to explain the hierarchy of content to Search Engines. The page title, its excerpt, its section headings (H1, H2, H3) all need to be coded to be highlighted when Search Engines analyze the page’s content.

Other guidelines are more related to the content itself and enable the author to make sure he/she uses the right set of keywords. For instance, in the right density on the page and for its assets (such as images and videos) to be parsed and indexed.

2. Linkbacks (referral links)

The number of websites that link back to your website is an important metric that tells search engines that the website is a resource to others. And for your information, Google has an algorithm and a metric to calculate this number, which it calls PageRank.

All websites indexed by Google have a PageRank score. And this site ranking is influenced by how many links point back to your website. But even more important, what the PageRank of these websites is. In other words, a website with a very high PageRank such as the New York Times website (PageRank 9/10) linking back to your website has much more weight.

Than a hundred (or more) websites with Page Rank lower than your website. Google PageRank (Google PR) is one of the methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance. You can test the tool for your site rank here.

3. Quality Backlinks Utilization

So while linking back is important, quality backlinks are critical. The most popular Social Media platforms, for instance, have some of the highest PageRanks (Facebook: 9, Twitter: 10). Making it essential for your website’s content to be shared and linked back there.

Also, the more a website has shareable content (with blog articles, for instance), the more opportunities it creates. In order to have this content distributed, shared, and linked back to on the wide web. Assess the Page Rank Quality of the referral sites linking back to your website content.

Equally important, trying to be linked back by high PageRank websites is an important part of modern SEO.

4. Social Media Interactions Behaviour

Social Networks are traditionally very effective content sharing platforms. Sharing content on Social Media creates link backs to your website. Not forgetting, social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn has a very high PageRank. So, sharing your content there is excellent for search engine ranking.

Content can be actively shared by the website’s owner. Or it can be shared by the readers through “social media sharing.”While using the icons on the article page. That’s by enabling them for readers to share the articles on their favorite social networks.

Because anybody can share anything on social media, search engines had to become smart. In terms of understanding what content had real value on social media networks. The way they do that is to measure how much interaction is occurring within the shareable content.

5. Social Media Search Engine Optimization

These “social signals” when available, tells search engines that the content has value and creates engagement. In reality, Facebook still guards its access against Google for example. So, not all engagement metrics are accessible. This means it should naturally rank higher as readers have expressed their appreciation of it through actions.

On one hand, Google rewards its users by introducing the concept of authorship. And also ranking higher contributors that have a strong following. And in reality, those who of course regularly publish relevant content on the blog.

Notably, social media requires activeness too. That’s why there are mechanisms to automatically publish content from your website to social networks. However, building and engaging a community requires constant efforts.

6. Content Update and Frequency Flow

The content of a website is essential for search engine indexing and ranking. So, the more content pages there are on a website, the more web links a search engine has to reference. This logic explains why news media sites and research update blogs have become so popular and successful on the Web.

For specialized blogs, numerous articles often have the same themes and keywords. In return, which tells search engines that the website is a resource in the content on those topics. And as a consequence, publishing content regularly has become essential. In that case, to create a competitive repository of content and keywords.

7. Google Authorship Guidelines Observation

On June 7, 2011, Google announced authorship markup for web search. Simply described, publishers could link an author byline to an author’s identifiable profile on another site. And authors could link back to the publications.

That two-way linkage created a digital signature that would give Google more confidence about the identity of authors. And also, inasmuch as it created a connection with their content across the web.

8. Google Search Engine Optimization and Integration

Google is undeniably the dominant Search Engine with over 70% usage worldwide (as per the Desktop Search Engine Market Share report for Sept 2013).

By all means, Google has been instrumental in shaping the Search Engine Marketing (in short SEM) industry with advertising platforms such as;

Google Ads which was formerly Google AdWords,
Professional SEO tools such as Google Webmasters,
Content platforms such as YouTube (the second largest Search Engine in the world), and
Social Media with Google publish & share your site (second largest worldwide).

Needless to say that Google can create all the incentives in the world to lure marketers. In that case, towards using their platforms over competitors to gain SEO advantage. And while Google is not open about the direct benefits of using all its tools, its cleary promoting SEO value.

As a consequence, it has become the best SEO practice, for Google specifically, to use or promote a website. And on as many Google services as possible. In order to benefit from the customer preference over a competitor website.

9. Website user Experience impacts on SEO

Google has recently included in its ranking algorithm the analysis of the “call to action items” and links on a page. Whereas, the Google Platform also roughly know where those items are on the website. It can tell if these elements are “above the fold”, (i.e. what the user can see on her screen without scrolling), or not.

And as a consequence, Google takes into account design elements in its analysis. And then after, it includes a ranking factor related to the website’s usability. With that knowledge, Google will, for instance, penalize a website that is heavy on banner ads above the fold.

So to say, it will believe that it doesn’t provide optimal user experience by cluttering the page with ads. It will also reward a website where the “buy now” or “subscribe” buttons are above the fold, rather than under.

10. Keyword relevance for the SEO Content

Using tools such as Google AdWords Express or Google Trends, website owners and content publishers can identify which keywords relate to their product. As well as, which services are the most searched for in its search engine.

There is little traffic value in focusing on using keywords that very few people, if any, use to look for content. Another key point, it is important to understand what keywords drive the most traffic. And also, how to combine them, especially to the right relevant content. It will drive a website’s content SEO relevance, and traffic to it as a consequence.

Always remember, search engines punish websites that overload their content with keywords. Or even use keywords that are not relevant to the overall topic of a content page.

Passive and Active SEO Technicalities

Recently a new technical requirement has come up related to sharing content from your website onto social media. The infrastructure of websites is technical and needs to provide the information search engines are looking for. Especially when analyzing (or crawling) a website.

Both outbound and internal links are crucial. Wherever you mention a site or a source, make sure these include a reference and a hyperlink. As for internal links, meticulously linking will increase the time spent on your site by the spiders. You may wish to revisit your menu structure or to insert a quick links footer.

In order to determine the PageRank of your site, you can download a browser plugin such as Open SEO stats (Formerly: Page Rank Status) for the Google Chrome Browser. On a clear note, the technicalities can either be passive or active. Depending on the actions taken by the website’s owner.

Passive SEO Technicalities

Passive technicalities are about how a website provides information to search engines when these indexes the pages of the site.

Some passive tactics include providing a content site map (usually an XML file) for search engines. Hence to efficiently understand what content they need to index. Making sure there are no missing pages (or broken links).

Active SEO Technicalities

Active technicalities are about the initiatives the owner takes to notify search engines of changes to the website. And also, connecting the website to the search engine’s webmaster tools to monitor its SEO health.

A badly indexed website will dramatically impact its ranking on the search engine results page. Particularly, because search engines won’t be able to index the website properly.

Resources;

Finally, I hope the above-revised guide was simple and useful to you and your marketing team. Feel free to Contact Us if you’ll need more support or help.

You can also share your questions, contributions, and more research suggestions in the comments section. See more additional, useful and related topic links below;

Here is an important note; Are you thinking of building an AMP Ready and Responsive Website for SEO and friendly enough to all the Search Engines?

Whether you are just getting started with a new website or are a webmaster pro like us, this article has the best guidelines that are suitable to all. Having said that, here is your Website for SEO? | Step-by-step Beginners Design Guides. See also 75 Actionable SEO Tips (That Work Like A Charm).

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