The Ultimate SEO Guide for 2020, Made Simple
People who work in e-commerce, marketing, or advertising have most likely come across the term search engine optimization (SEO), and rightfully so.
If done correctly, SEO is the simplest, most cost-effective aspect of digital marketing that a company can utilize to increase the visibility of a site in a search engine.
This post will help you keep up with today’s digital market climate, and also a useful SEO guide for beginners.
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of improving a site to increase the quantity and quality of site visitors from search engines.
Organic search is the source of the majority of a site’s visitors; in the United States, only 2.8% of the population click on paid ads.
SEO is an intimidating topic for many professionals, but it doesn’t have to be.
Learning about the basics of SEO can help a company achieve its digital marketing objectives.
Read on for a quick four-step SEO guide on how to enhance a site to achieve desired results.
Step 1: Use the correct keywords
Using the correct keywords is probably the first step in any SEO guide.
It is the most important aspect in SEO and can exponentially increase traffic to a site.
We don’t just use arbitrary keywords; we use keywords that match our brand and products or services.
In choosing keywords, we must bear in mind what sets us apart as a brand.
What is it that we offer that will resonate well with our target market? What do we have that sets us apart from our competitors?
Here’s an example:
A hair salon in Ohio may use the keywords “hair salon Ohio,” but hundreds of hair salons in Ohio are probably already using those keywords.
We recommend using long-tail keywords that set a business apart from its competition.
Using the keywords “Balayage highlights Cleveland” will get fewer traffic, but it will result in more conversions as the people who search for those keywords are already probably ready to set an appointment.
Use Google Trends
There are also several tools that can help choose keywords, such as Google Trends. Google Trends is a free tool that analyzes the popularity of search queries.
It can help a company get ideas on other keywords that are related to its products or services.
In the images below, we used the keywords “hair treatment.”
From these illustrations, we can see that hair treatments are searched for more in New York than in New Jersey.
We can also see several related topics that the audience is searching for, such as keratin treatments and hair loss treatments. These ideas can help us decide on more keywords for our site.
Step 2: Keep Users Satisfied
Google’s algorithms aim to provide users with the best possible results. The most popular search engine wants to satisfy its users and works to provide relevant and user-friendly sites for its customers.
Here are the factors to consider for the users:
1. User experience (UX) – Make sure that the site visitor is satisfied with the content.
Keep your site simple and easy to navigate, with pleasant designs and easy-to-read fonts.
Avoid adding unnecessary elements that might displease your visitors, such as music or pop-ups.
2. Relevance – A client searching for “best steaks in Los Angeles” will not be satisfied if he ends up in a vegan restaurant’s website. Make sure that the keywords match the content.
3. Use of headers and sub headers – A site’s content must be easy to read so visitors don’t feel bombarded with too much information.
4. Mobile friendliness – Since 2016, mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches, and it is still true to this day. Keep your site mobile friendly.
Check if a website is mobile friendly with Google Mobile-Friendly Test.
5. Loading speed – A website shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to load; otherwise, site visitors might leave.
You can test your site’s speed with Google Pagespeed Insights.
3. Build Links
Building internal and external links is a great way for search engines to notice the most important pages in a site.
For building internal links, we recommend creating cornerstone content.
Cornerstone content is a collection of the most relevant content in a site.
It must contain information on the factors that differentiate a brand from its competition, allowing applicable articles and posts to link back to it.
Backlinks from other websites is one of the top considerations for Google in ranking a site.
While there are many ways to have other sites create backlinks to a certain site, we recommend just creating simple, interesting, well-written content.
Such content will be read, shared, and talked about, creating more organic reach for a site.
4. Set Success Measures
The last item in our SEO guide is to set success measures. Once we set success measures, we can keep improving our site to achieve desired results.
Two things we can measure are a site’s organic traffic and rankings.
Check out Google Search Console for this. It’s a Google service that allows website owners to check a site’s indexing status and visibility.
SEO is Dynamic
SEO is a multifaceted tool that can help make or break the success of digital campaigns.
This SEO guide is a great first step to learning about SEO, but there are still many things to learn.
Keep learning about SEO to increase site traffic and generate more revenue with Infintech Designs.
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