If you have a website, you would always want to be at the top of the search rankings.
According to a study, the first page of Google accounts for 95% of total web traffic. This means people will most likely click and visit pages that are in the first page, or specifically the first 4 results.
With all the changes in Google’s algorithm during the past years (500 to 600 changes per year to be exact), we can see that there are now a lot of factors to consider if you want to rank high in the search results. There are no templated programs out there that can help you achieve this. The only way to get to the top of the rankings is through dedication, creativity and old-fashioned hard work.
This article covers the basics of Search Engine Optimization and a step-by-step guide you can use to start off your SEO journey.
Like what we always say to our clients, before you do a deep dive in the more technical steps, we first need to understand our consumers and what they are searching for. It is really important to start finding the most popular ways people are searching in your category.
Here at Klick, we use different tools and one of them is Google Trends. This free tool will give you the relative popularity of any of the search terms you enter.
You just need to be mindful that this tool doesn’t show you the actual search volume. You also need to check your other tools that would show you the actual volumes so you’d know which words and phrases to capitalize on.
If based on your keyword search you see terms that have high searchability, then you’ve found your content topics. Now, this is where you will need to be creative. With your chosen keywords, you would now need to look for topics surrounding it. Because SEO is a marathon and not a sprint, you will need to write a lot about different topics and seed it on different channels, even your social media channels because content and SEO overlap.
Your objective for this second point is to create content that people would want to read about and would want to watch over and over again. It’s best to make sure that you spend time analyzing search intent so you can create various topics around your keywords.
This is where it gets more technical and will require you to have better knowledge on your page tags. You need to make sure that all your title tags, meta descriptions are unique and are set up. These tags tell your page what it’s all about.
You must also make sure that your website is mobile optimized. This provides your audience with better access to your site and this in turn will improve your site’s credibility in Google algorithms.
It would also be beneficial for you if you conduct site audits regularly (checkout our site audit guide here). This way, you will get to check your website’s health and whether there are sections with critical errors. Google has already started penalizing websites that have critical errors by lowering some pages SEO scores. This means, their rankings will be greatly affected.
Links are HTML hyperlinks that are coded to connect one website to another. These are important if you want to improve your page rankings. The more websites link back to your site, the more credible you are. These are link the testimonials of webpages. Think about asking a friend about which compression gear works best for regular use and three of them say it’s LP Support, wouldn’t you consider it as well. This actually how back linking works.
Now there are a lot of ways to create back links. You can check out credible websites that can relate to your brand and ask if they would like to link back to you (whether it be your products or something you have written on your blog pages). Most links are earned so you would have to establish a connection with certain sites. These links in turn, send qualified traffic to your site.
However, don’t think that all links would lend credibility to your site. There are other types of links you should avoid they may hurt your SEO.
Low-quality directory links
These pay-for-placement web directories used to be a popular way of improving your links. With recent developments, Google has adjusted it’s algorithm to reduce the impact of these types of links.
Link exchange with low credibility sites
These are usually done by sites whose objective is to just create cross-links with other sites. If you open their page these you would see that there are no other details inside except for links. And these pages really hurt your page.
Purchased links
These are online sites that offer you link exchanges in return for links. And these sites pay high SEO penalties that significantly affect your rankings.
As with any effort you do for your business, you need to make sure that you also track your SEO performance. It is important that you check your milestones and results from time to time. This is where your marketing goals would also come in to play. Some of the metrics you need to consider are:
Traffic Metrics
This is the first items you must check to know how your strategies are fairing. The most common metrics you would need to check here are increase in organic website traffic and leads.
Engagement Metrics
These are data sets that will tell you how people behave once they are in your site. Here you can check on details like conversion, time on page, and bounce rate.
If you implement these steps, and do it consistently and creatively, you can already improve your site’s ranking. This will bring you closer to your target audience.
If you you need help with your SEO strategies, you can always reach out to us.
