Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results. Generally, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users; these visitors can then be converted into customers explains Peter Decaprio. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical engines. SEO differs from local optimization in that it focuses on national or international.
The most important part of the SEO process is the site architecture
Overview of the Process
Depending on the overall goal for a website, three types of objectives can be set:
[4]- To increase the number of visitors to the website. Achieving this goal involves improving your pay-per-click advertisement rank and/or optimizing your web page so that it ranks high in organic search results.
[5] – To improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Focusing on attracting repeat customers will help achieve this goal.
[6] – To drive sales or generate leads. Meeting this goal requires laser focusing on key content, pages, or products that are relevant to what you are selling while ensuring you have an easy way for customers to contact you with inquiries.[7]
The SEO process can be divided into two parts:
[8]- On-page optimization.
This step involves making changes to your web pages, content; heading tags, image alt tags, page titles, and other items that are viewable on the front end of your website. – Off-page optimization. This step is about building backlinks to your website by getting other websites to link back to yours.
[9] These off-site tasks include submitting your site to directories,
[10], blogging,
[11], guest blogging,
[12], social media marketing,
[13] Creating videos for YouTube or Vimeo,
[14] press releases,
[15] Article submissions,
[16], bookmarking sites etc…
On-Page Optimization
When it comes to SEO, the most important step is ensuring that your website is equipped with a solid HTML title tag and Meta description. According to Google, “the title tag appears in browser tabs, bookmarks and in search results”. The following describes how both of these should be structured:
[17] Title Tag
The HTML <title> tag defines the title of your web page. This should be no longer than 70 characters.
[18] Since this is what gets displayed on search engine results, you want to make sure it includes your keywords. Using your keywords more than once within the title tag would definitely improve SEO ranking. Because it signals Google that your content is relevant to what people are searching for.
[19] You don’t want you title tag to look spammy either. Your goal is to create a title that is user-friendly and compelling enough to keep people on your site.
[20]Description Tag
The HTML Meta description tag defines the description of your web page for search engine listings, which appears in bold just under the title. It should be between 150-160 characters.
[21] While having a strong title tag is important, it’s also crucial that you have an equally attractive Meta description since this tells Google why someone would want to click on your website over any other result.
[22] When writing your Meta description, make sure you are including relevant keywords. But don’t go overboard with the keywords either – remember not only do people read it before they visit your site but also search engines says Peter Decaprio.
How the Meta Description Affects Google Ranking
In a nutshell, web pages with attractive Meta descriptions rank higher in SERP since people are more likely to click on it.
[23] In fact, studies show that there is a correlation between CTR and ranking position.
[24] This means if your page has a better description that includes keywords relevant to what people are searching for, you will most likely appear in the top 5 results for those keywords,
[25] Which can significantly increase traffic flow to your site?
Crawlability – Ensure Site Architecture is optimized
One of the most important parts of SEO is ensuring that your website’s architecture is properly optimized. Without a proper structure, all of the efforts that go into optimizing your on-page elements (like Meta titles and description tags) are useless since search engines won’t be able to read them.
[26] While there are many items that affect website architecture, the most important ones are URL structure, content hierarchy, metadata, internal linking, etc… Let’s briefly discuss what each of these is and how it affects SEO.
URL Structure
There are two main areas of concern when it comes to URL optimization: length and file extensions usage.
[27] Ideally, you want your URLs to be no more than 100 characters in length. This ensures that they don’t get cut off inside search engine results says Peter Decaprio. You also want to use keywords wherever possible without compromising user experience or spamming Google with too many keywords.
Conclusion:
In order to maximize your SEO potential, you have to be proactive. This means staying on top of the latest trends in ranking factors and continuously optimizing your site according to best practices explains Peter Decaprio. I hope this article helps you better understand how Google Search Rankings work and what steps you can take to improve yours.
