SEO for Beginners
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SEO is a common term for website administration and Digital Marketing which stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the practice of organizing your site content, meta-data, and link relationships in order to reach higher ranked positions in a search result list. SEO is a basic strategy in any marketing plan and should be part of your standard practices.
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO covers the content and structure of your site–anything within your physical control. This can also include technical details, such as page speed and code quality.
On-Page SEO refers to how well your website ranks for particular search terms. This plays a big part in how often your visitors find your content and how likely they are to buy from you. Many people put too much pressure on on-page SEO without understanding the importance of link building and separate traffic sources. The result is over-optimized sites that load slowly and are difficult to read.
Without on-page SEO, no one else will be able to find your content and rank it high for relevant searches. No matter how well-optimized your site is, if someone can’t find it or access it due to technical issues or low bandwidth, it’s not going to rank very high in the search engines. On-page SEO will boost your organic search traffic by making sure people see your content when they’re looking for it.
On-page SEO is more than just title tags and keywords. It refers to the strategic placement of keywords within a webpage and the way they’re ordered and related within the document itself. All good search engines look at on-page SEO, and it comes down to knowing exactly what kind of keywords you’re using, how you’re using them, and why. You think you’re using them properly, but there may be an alternative strategy being employed by a competitor that could be impacting rankings at this very moment.
Off-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO includes factors beyond your control. This can include links from social media, or other websites and marketing activities, it may also include how your page ranks compared to other sites in your industry. Because this information is all outside of your control it can be difficult to optimize.
Off-page SEO (also known as social bookmarking or back link building) involves the use of SEO software or techniques to improve the visibility of websites and other online resources in search results. It can include sharing Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, or other websites to stimulate search engine traffic. These days the Internet is a much more dynamic place than it was in the early days of the Internet. Search engines are constantly built, updated and maintained by teams of technicians from many companies. As a result, there are many versions of search engines available for different platforms and devices.
The main reason off-page SEO is so important is that without it, you won’t get your website noticed by search engines. When you optimize your site for search engines not only will it rank better, but it will stay on the first page of search results. Many businesses make a habit of focusing only on top search phrases because getting your site in front of customers results in higher traffic, more leads and more sales.
Tips for solving off-page SEO problems (spam, backlinks) are made to follow the target in the SERPs and if possible, entice searchers to your site by getting them through email or social media. In reality, very few people will read the whole blog. Hence, it’s worthwhile making sure you show up regularly in SERPs (search engine result pages), and be ready to solve problems on a short notice. Also, the more resources people have to consult in a given case, the better wiggle room you have to handle things on your end.
SEO Goals
While SEO should always be on your mind while writing content, it is much more important to build and maintain the best, and most relevant, content you can. Trying to ‘game the system’ will backfire. The best SEO strategy you can have as a site owner is to provide frequently updated and high-quality content.
In SEO, goals are essentially steps towards a specific, stated goal. Generally speaking, your SEO goals will be:Increase organic search traffic from search engines such as Google Increase page views on your site from page views on other sites (i.e. people sharing your content)
SEO goals are very important. Once you realize how important they are, it will be much easier to achieve them. We’d like to think that goals are set in stone and can never be taken away. However, this doesn’t seem to be true. Always keep in mind that your goal may change later on in life. If you set a goal that’s too high pressure to reach, you could end up disappointed and gave up before even trying. There’s a fine line between setting SEO goals and over-thinking them.
Sounds great, right? But setting this goal might not be the best way to go about SEO. And if you’re wondering how you could possibly know enough about Search Engine Optimization to make an informed decision about what sort of goals you should set, the best way is probably for someone who actually knows something about the subject – someone who’s worked at or taken an active role in SEO campaigns (not just read blog posts about them).
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