Search Engine Optimization – Basics

Search Engine Optimization, most commonly known as SEO, has been gaining a steady increase in the industry. For those who have no idea what SEO is, it is actually a process of increasing the performance of a website. Simply put, if your website appears as the highest in any search engine, it will generate more visits from netizens.

How can your website get that amazing improvement from being obscured to having thousands of hits daily? The following factors are what your website should possess in order to gain a steady rise in the search engine rankings.

ON THE PAGE SEO

ON THE PAGE SEO, the most important part of any website is its CONTENT as it provides readers with necessary information they are searching for. The content of a website should have:

QUALITY

People search for information that is well written and presented to them. No one wants to read something that is just a waste of time. At the end, your goal is to give everyone what he or she are looking for in a medium that can be understood by all. Clarity and quality is the key since it will be useless if you have good content but the presentation is unclear. You want them to understand and get the gist of what your website wants to convey.

RESEARCH

As for most engines, people usually type keywords of topics they want to know more through website content. In this way, they can get results that are relevant to them. In order for your website to gain an edge among others, it will be more beneficial for you to know the things that web surfers usually type in search engines to find the content you most probably have in your site. Research those words or keywords that would make your website more visible to others.

WORDS

Make sure that your web content has words and phrases that people will usually look for. Your content will be useless if no one searches for them or the words and phrases you use do not meet the expectations most internet users have. Determine what words people normally use when researching over the internet and make sure your website has them.

ENGAGE

Last thing you want is your website to be opened for a few seconds then the close button will be clicked. Do not bore your audience. Find a way to engage them into exploring your website and reading your web content. It’s not just about being number one in search engines but actually having visitors to stay and enjoy browsing through your website. Satisfy them with what you have but still give surprises to keep them engaged.

FRESH

Do not bore your readers. A good content is better but a sensational topic is the best. You can encourage more people to visit your website if you offer fresh and timely topics that would interest them. Gaining interest of web surfers first is the best way to start. After you have captured their interest, make sure that you deliver what they are expecting from the topics your website contains. Do not mislead them by ending up with an irrelevant content.

Besides having content for your website, the HTML adds to the improvement of your visibility. The best HTML factors that you should consider to achieve your goals are:

TITLES

Your page’s HTML title tags should be connected to your page topics. The titles should contain keywords that would be found in your page. This will be what people would look for so it’s an advantage to have title tags that are usually searched and relevant to the pages your website has.

DESCRIPTION

It is very helpful to have Meta description tags that tell people the content of your website. Remember that most web surfers browse first for the topics that interest them before they actually engage with a website. Best to have description tags that tell people what they can expect from your site. It all goes down to telling people the things you could offer to peak their interest in clicking your site.

HEADERS

As mentioned earlier, keywords are important in improving the performance of a website since it helps people to de directed. Following this, your content should have headlines that possess header tags with the relevant keywords. This will be what people would search for and if your headlines have tags that can be immediately seen by web surfers then your site can have the visibility you want.

In all websites, the ARCHITECTURE usually becomes the backbone since all your content will be useless if you cannot present it to your audience.

CRAWL

To have an efficient way of becoming visible to the public, it will be beneficial if the search engines can crawl seamlessly on the pages of your website. What do we mean by crawling? Your website can have a better chance of gaining visitors if the engines who have stored information about your site through crawling can index it. In return, it will give the site visibility once the search engine is used through stored data. You will also want to have a website that can be deemed by crawlers as valuable to help you pop more on the engines.

 SPEED

The most annoying thing for most surfers including you must be wasting time waiting for a website to load. Internet users use the web to gain speedy access to information that they need. That’s the whole point of having the internet and your website should possess a speed that will appeal to people preventing them from closing your site because they are tired of waiting. In a world where ‘instant’ is the new trend, your website should be able to deliver the information faster than others should.

URLs

Remember that people usually go for familiarity and easy recall. Your website’s URL should be short enough to be remembered by surfers and relevant enough to your content. Many prefer URLs that are directly connected to their search topics without the hassle of trying to remember longer URLs that might end up wrong.

 OFF THE PAGE SEO

OFF THE PAGE SEO, of course, there are things that you have complete control and factors that are also influenced by other people. In SEO, some factors can affect a website’s performance because of a third party intervention.

QUALITY

With most websites, there are different links that direct readers to other pages. In order to gain the patronage of web surfers, your links should come from trusted and recognized websites. Most people visit those that are proven to be effective by many. Last thing you would want is to have a shady reputation just because the links came from questionable pages.

TEXT

Again connected with the keywords, links that will direct readers to pages should have words that most people usually search in their engines. Again, you want to become visible and it would help that people click links that have keywords they are looking for.

NUMBER

Guarantee your hits by making sure that plenty of links exist to direct readers into your pages. As many would say, “Spread the Word”, this is one way of gaining popularity by getting a large amount of links pointing to your content.

REPUTATION

Build your reputation and it guarantees your website to have an audience. Most people refer to others for recommended pages. Your website needs to establish its reliability and efficiency that would catch the attention of trusted individuals in order for them to ‘advertise your content’ by sharing it to others.

SHARE

Gaining reputation is one thing but achieving large network that shares your web content guarantees a larger audience. It is one way of spreading the word about your site as many people would refer to your content and share it with their own networks

AUTHORITY

Another factor that would help websites gain popularity is by becoming a trusted authority in the field that their sites represent. This can be done through reputable sharing of links that guarantees readers the validity of your site and content.

HISTORY

Nothing beats a clean and good background or record of accomplishment. For your website to gain the familiarity of people, it should be around for a long time, providing service to the people. Satisfying many web surfers for a longer period of time adds up to a website’s credibility and that’s what people look for.

COUNTRY

It is better to determine the location of your surfers as this will provide you with necessary information on how to cater to their needs. You don’t want to become detached and impersonal. Your website should be able to engage them and the best way to go is learn from the reader’s location and try to have a personal approach.

LOCALITY

Just like knowing which country most of your visitors reside, it would be beneficial to know the general area in which they are located since it speaks volumes on the topics they want to search. Providing a content that are based on your readers’ situation can be beneficial as it gives them what exactly they are looking for. Remember that they don’t want a general content; they want something to work on.

HISTORY

Your website, besides having a long and clean history, should also have good recommendations from other people. Web surfers must visit your site frequently in order for other people to recognize that your page is good since people patronize it more than other sites. It’s like having an undefeated winning streak.

SOCIAL

Your website should have a good reputation with other people. Start by knowing what they think about your pages and what you can do to improve them. It helps to have constructive criticisms from what your friends think about your work. It will give you a third person perspective that helps you improve on delivering content to other people.

Most people are desperate to gain popularity through their websites. Do not fall for the old trick of guaranteeing sure visitors through shady processes and low techniques. Instead of getting hits, you might end up hitting the bottom of the internet world because of VIOLATIONS.

THIN

It was stated earlier that people are looking for web content that would answer their queries. Yes, you want many visitors but you most definitely don’t want pissed off web surfers because they got‘thin’ information or virtually nothing at all on your website. Your goal might be to gain visitors but you should gain them because they are satisfied with what you have to offer.

STUFF

Keywords help people to be directed to your website but do not overkill your use of keywords by stuffing it everywhere. Refrain from over using the words, as it will give your readers headache of having to read the same things repeatedly.

HIDDEN

For websites, refrain from utilizing certain designs and colors to obscure or hide things from your page. This is also misleading for web surfers. Just like with misleading them with the overuse of keywords and lacking content, hiding certain words from your page by distracting readers with your design would lessen your reputation.

CLOAKING

Be true to your readers and the search engines. Present what your website really is about and do not trick your visitors into thinking something different. If you have a good content with an interesting flow of topics then you don’t need to pretend for search engines to give you an instant hit.

PAID LINKS

Most people believe that with money and proper use of it in the internet would increase their chances of improving their search engine rankings. Common practice would be purchasing links but contrary to popular belief, this is a violation resulting to the ban of your website.

LINK SPAM

Again, as with all violations in SEO, you must not mislead and trick your visitors. Just like in creating numerous links that are actually spammed from other sites, you don’t want your readers to get irritated and see your page as a waste of time. They are looking for quality content and that’s what you should deliver to prevent unnecessary violations.

One way in which most websites suffer is from BLOCKS. It does not only give a bad reputation to other people but it’s also daunting to gain the trust of other web surfers when your page has been blocked by different entities.

BLOCKING

There are two ways in which your website can be affected by people’s blocks. First is from the number of people blocking you. The larger the number of your blocks speaks volume that many are unsatisfied or offended by your content.

BLOCKING

Another way is having people block your website from their search engines. It’s like saying that they don’t want to see your page. It results in other people thinking that if others don’t what to see it, why would they bother to click. This is a chain reaction that would end up digging a deeper hole for your website.