What is SEO? A complete guide for Search Engine Optimisation

Have you ever struggled to make an appearance in the search engines?? If yes, then here is a complete guide for SEO and some quick steps following which you can stand out among others and get an excellent ranking in the search engines.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. The process of optimizing Web contents for flawless appearance within search engines. The main aim is to get organic traffic and sales to the website from organic search. SEO is the predominant aspect of doing online business.

Managing pertinence in front of search engines, especially like Google, is one of the significant challenges that online businesses are facing nowadays. It is an acknowledged assumption that on-site SEO is one of the most essential constituents every business needs to have during their commencement to search engine jurisdiction.

Hence following are some tips to guide you through to attain a preferably better ranking in front of search engines and captivate the attention of more visitors to your website:

Adding a blog

Addition of a blog to a site provides clients with better prospects to create content conveniently and systematically. By doing so, they can avail the benefit of adding contents frequently as well as can allow visitors to ask questions and clarify their doubts or leave comments since blogs naturally attract search engine traffic.

The blog also increases the effectiveness of the site and can also alleviate the possibility of plausible customers who may share it on Social Media websites. Implementing a blog or server-generated rotating content keeps the content fresh.

Moreover, Blogs also leads to the inflation of the size of the website over time, and this can, in turn, provide a significant SEO benefit in the form of an increase in website authority and a higher number of pages to leverage with internal links.

Adding Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

Google Analytics is a free analytics tool that can provide clients with a variety of hypercritical data about their site and the way it is performing in the search engines. By the application of features such as Goal Tracking, Event Tracking, bounce rates and Intelligence, we can show clients the keywords, search engines and traffic sources that are inducing market or sales for their business.

You can sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, which have plenty of information that you can use to know in details about your keywords and web pages.

Reducing code bloat

Google’s spiders are exclusively looking for unique content, and JavaScript and CSS in the HTML code make it difficult for them to find it. Also, using codes excessively slows the page’s loading time, along with increasing the possibility of coding errors that may not be having any direct impact on the site’s SEO but still may prove to be an obstacle for the search engine spiders.

Making each page unique

It is a fact that we would not turn on the TV if it were just the same old programs. Similar is the case here. Google grades the appropriateness of every website primarily based on its contents, and always seeks great content which is not present anywhere else on the internet. And therefore the content of every page needs to be different not only from any other site on the Web but also from any other page on the same site. This factor escalates the concern of duplication of content, which is the fright of every site owner.

You can use the google keyword tool for keyword research or answer the public tool to know what people search for and write on quality relevant topics.

Using detailed meta description tags

<meta>description tags are those which appear in the search engine results pages – they provide the web surfer with an outline of the site.

Moreover, Google also uses meta description tags to distinguish between web pages. So we also need to be careful about describing each page differently to avoid any duplication of content. Furthermore, the inclusion of free offers, guarantees and a valid contact number can give a boost to the click-through rate on clients’ SEO ranking.

Removing repetitive wording from the website layout

It is essential to eliminate monotonous words from the website layout to prevent the major informative content of the site from being degraded in any way. If the content on every page is not unique enough, then there is the risk of the client’s site being penalised for duplication of content.

Adding footer links to every page

Footer links can be used to link between pages with the required keywords to rank for within the anchor text of the links because the major problem is that most pleasing website designs use graphical, JavaScript or Flash navigation that doesn’t use anchor text.

Creating a separate web page for each keyword or keyword phrase

The most effective and best way for a website to rank for a particular keyword phrase is to develop a web page targeted to that specific phrase with the keywords in the <title> tag, <meta>description tags, <h1>, body copy and URL. By creating a webpage devoted for every product or service separately, a good user experience can be established since they can end up landing straightaway on this page from the search engine results, making it much easier for them to buy online or submit a form for more detailed information.

Using proper keyword rich title tags on each page

Keywords are essential since they dictate the overall focus of the page itself. Keywords in the title tag of the browser and are one of the crucial aspects used by search engines to regulate the content of a page. Thus keywords that the client wants to rank for should be used instead of including the company name in the tag. It will render the client a substantial dominance for being ranked in the search engines.

Using correctly formatted, clean and human-readable URLs

Use of underscores in the URL should be avoided strictly. Using underscores can cause Google to see words in the URL string as one big word and hamper the ability for people to find the site through a keyword search. So instead of using the underscore, dashes can be used in the URLs. If you’re using a CMS (content management system) like Word Press, you can use a custom permalink structure, and Word Press will generate a correctly formatted URL automatically.

Removing Stop Words from URL

“Stop Words”, are words that are likely to be ignored by most search engines, in particular, Google, when a search request is processed. These are usually common words such as I, the, it and what If you are using Word Press and have custom permalinks set up, you can download a plugin called SEO Slugs that will help you remove stop words from your URLs.

Using Ordered and Unordered Lists

Listing items with the appropriate ordered or unordered lists recommend search engines to consider every item and treat it as a correlated asset. To add to this, proper display of items in a list format will also procure significant Web standards. Not only will it have a better look, but also it will behave like a list whenever there is a need to add or remove items.

Using Alt and Title Attributes on Images

It is essential to include alt and title attributes on all the images. Alt tags illustrate the content of images to the search engines. Hence, when a person searches for a specific image this is a vital determining factor for a match.

Using a Robots.txt File

While using Word Press and displaying archive pages, tagged posts, or categories, there is a possibility of being penalized by Google for having duplicate content on the site. Nevertheless, using a Robots.txt file on the website can disclose the search engines, such as Google, not to index the specified directories. Robots.txt is a text file, that can be placed on the site root. For more information regarding creating a Robots.txt file, please check out https://www.robotstxt.org/

Optimising Page Titles

Optimising the page titles is another pivotal step in good SEO practices. Here are a few steps that can be implemented for optimisation:

It should be made sure that the important keywords occur within the first 60 characters of the page title

Unless and until a brand or company is actually renowned, apparently it is most suitable to put the title of the specific page first and the name of the site or company last in the page titles.

Moreover, page titles that arouse passion, make queries, or promise to solve a problem should be written.

Conclusion

Always stay away from black hat SEO and follow white hat seo techniques. Your keyword might rank high in search engine results but in the long run, the website will be blacklisted by search engines. So, be patient as it takes some hard work and a little sweating.

Link building or off-page SEO is also an appropriate way to improve SEO. There are many more advanced and technical SEO techniques out there, but transparent and straight forward things which are as easy as pie should be focussed first that can give a boost to the site SEO. Therefore, by taking reference from the above steps, clients can be provided with the best possible opportunity to generate sales and profits from search engine rankings. This is exactly how SEO works.