So you are here to learn more about the fascinating term SEO but before further let’s first learn the basics of this term.
What is SEO in simple words?
SEO stands for Search engine optimization. It is the process of optimizing your website for a better understanding of search engines. SEO involves all the steps an expert takes to rank a site from Keyword research to on-page and then off-page optimization.
SEO vs Paid Ads
Search engine traffic is completely different from paid traffic as the name suggests you don’t pay for Organic traffic but PPC ads do cost a lot of money depending on the keywords you target. The major benefit of Search engine optimization is you get free traffic that converts best into buyers or clients.
How do Search Engines work?
Search engine bots or crawlers analyze websites from time to time looking for new content and improvements, they create copies of the pages that they visit during their crawl, and after that, they add all the data to servers and analyze the pages on more than 200 SEO factors like content: what page is all about, intent(what you are offering), after indexing search engines shows webpages on different positions depending on the relevance of the searched term and other factors like backlinks, user behavior, site structure, etc.
Do paid ads rank higher on Google?
As mentioned earlier paid ads and organic results are completely different in nature but paid ads to get the positions against different keywords based on the Cost Per Click (CPC), higher the bid higher your ad will be shown to the users, let’s say you are bidding on a keyword “Plumber in California” 1$/Click but your competitors are bidding 1.1$ for the same keyword, their ad/Site will appear first on search results and you will get the second position, Paid ads are all about the money you spend on search engines.
Why Is SEO Important for Businesses?
The world has changed a lot after covid, online searches for all businesses have increased by more than 73% because people are now working from home, big companies are still following the principle of working from home and which increases the demand for online searches.
Let’s say you are the owner of a “dumpster rental business” and all your clients are offline or via phone, imagine having an optimized website that shows on Google search results for the query “Dumpster Rental New York” it will increase your business almost 753% because now users can find you online, book an appointment or directly order a Dumpster online.
For eCommerce businesses SEO works like magic, potential buyers find you online and you get orders without waiting for clients from your shop, another state, or even from some other country.
What are the 3 types of SEO?
SEO is divided into 3 basic types:
- Local SEO
- E-commerce SEO
- NEWS/Information SEO
What comes under the umbrella of SEO?
SEO is not as simple as it looks, basically, it is really complex for Non-Techies.
SEO Basics: The Complete Breakdown
Here we will learn about all the basics of SEO, it is time taking process as there is not a single process that involves
Keywords
It all starts with keyword research, niches are usually already decided for business sites but in some cases not like Amazon affiliates, etc.
Here we will take the example of a “Dental Clinic” Now we know the discussion will be around one team that is a dental clinic, and for this, we will make use of keyword research tools like Ahrefs to facilitate the whole process. We can use different long tail keywords for content like dental clinic new york, best dental clinic new york, dental care New York, Best SEO agency in Long Island, and so on.
All we have to do is select the most relevant keywords for the business we want to rank for.
Content
After keyword research, we start working on SEO content that should be for the users.
Features Good SEO content are:
- Write for humans not for search engines: you must write for the humans, not for the purpose of getting ranked because it will never happen because now search engines are smart enough that they can understand what a piece of content is all about
- It is easy to read: write in easy wording not fancy/difficult vocabulary
- It fulfills the user’s demand (relevance) and explains deeply what the reader really wants to form that content
- It is engaging: When users find your content engaging, they are more likely to stay longer on your site, interact with it, and share it with others. Engaging content not only improves your SEO ranking but also helps build your brand and establish your authority in your industry.
- Completeness: it means that your content covers all aspects of the topic in detail and leaves no questions unanswered. Complete content not only satisfies the user’s needs but also sends a positive signal to search engines that your content is high-quality and comprehensive.
- Reliability: include authentic information, and stats to make it better than others
As Bill Gates once said “Content is King” and that is 100% correct, if your content is of high quality you already have won 50% of your SEO game because without good content you can’t rank in this ever-growing competitive market.
HTML
HTML of your site carries the same importance as other factors, basically, search engines do not read the sites as humans do but they read the HTML code, cleaner the code increases the chances to get better results as it helps search engines to understand what your site is all about, that’s why it is recommended to keep the site clean with minimum plugins or third party software
Backlinks
In simple words, a backlink is a reference to your website from some other website. Backlinks play an important role in SEO as they are one of the major factors that help to grow your online business but that does not mean you rank high with a lot of backlinks, it requires backlinks to be relevant and high authority to get maximum benefits at a natural pace.
Faqs
How long does it take to rank in Google?
Ranking on Google takes an average of 6 to 8 months but this period could be longer or shorter for different niches on some topics you can rank in 3 months on the other hand niches like real estate takes a minimum of 1.3 years to see some results.
How Do I Improve My Website’s Authority?
The best way to increase authority is by getting backlinks from High authority websites from your niche. Site authority score can be increased from no-relevant links but it does no benefit but negative impact.
Do I Need to Hire Someone to Do SEO for Me?
You do not need to hire someone for SEO if you have 5-7 hours a day to spend on your website taking care of all the SEO-related stuff but that is a whole new world and you can not learn SEO just to implement it on a single website, so our recommendation is to hire an agency for SEO to get results faster because you can’t experiment stuff while running a business.
