Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process and tasks involved in pushing a website up to #1 on the search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo).
Understand the Details of the Business
For your site to be successful in the search engines, you have to understand the details of the business. It’s easy when you deconstruct the business model to get into the business details. The more you understand your customers POV, the better your site will communicate a message that engages and inspires your potential customers.
Keyword Research
What phrases and words are your customers using to find businesses like yours? To get a quick advantage find out what your competitor’s keywords are. Here’s some great free tools to use:
Google Keyword Planner
Yoast Google Suggest Expander
Google Analytics
Build Targeted Pages
Build pages and/or blog posts with your targeted keywords as the topic.
The Right Keyword Balance
There’s a “balance” to keywords to text in an article/page. 2.5 to 5% of the page content should be keywords. If your keyword density is too low, you won’t rank for it. If your keyword density is too high, Google will penalize you. If you use Yoast SEO, it will give you the keyword to text percentage.
The Right Keyword Position
There are specific places in your article where you keyword should be placed for the most advantage, in the first paragraph as close as can be to the beginning of the sentence. And the very last sentence of the page or article.
Internal and External Links
Link your blog posts together with the pages and relevant blog posts on your site. Google like it when they can crawl around the site and go from page to page to blog post to blog post. The more they can spend time on your site crawling around the more Google likes it.
Link to websites that have a complementary topic to yours. Link to blog posts that will be a value to your readers. By linking to expert articles that back up your assertions and theories, your readers will see you as the go-to expert.
Submit your Website to the Search Engine
Just because your site is live doesn’t mean the search engines will find it. To make sure Google finds your site submit it to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?continue=/addurl&pli=1. Or just use the Yoast SEO plugin and it will submit your site for you.
Add a Site Map to your Website
Again Yoast SEO plugin saves the day here and will create one automatically or use XML-Sitemaps.com to create the sitemap manually.
Create Content for your Site
Google LOVES new content! Google is an advertising service disguised as a search engine. So serving up the freshest, most relevant content to their users will have their users come back to them time after time. Include links to your content and promote your newest content on social media and in guest posts.
Use an SEO Plugin
I’ve already pointed out the advantages of an SEO plugin for adding a sitemap and submitting your site to the search engine. Yoast SEO is my favorite. But All in One SEO is a close second. By using an SEO plugin, you stack the search engine in your favor with a meta description that compels the searcher to click on your page or article.
Feel free to ask questions about Search Engine Optimization in the comments.
