Pandas, and penguins, and seo...oh my! Search engine optimization these days seems complicated, and can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. And let's face it...unless you have money to spend on advertising, you'll have to master it or your website will be dead in the water. This article will reveal three simple steps for improving your SEO so that you will hopefully start getting the rankings you need to succeed.
Step One: Proper Keyword Research
We all want to rank for the most popular keywords with the most traffic, but unless you have lot's of time and lot's of money, it isn't going to happen. Instead, you have to focus on less competitive, multi-word phrases like “Sportdog SD400”, or “Breville Juice Fountain Plus JE9XL”. These are known as longtail keywords. Sure they get less traffic individually, but they will be easier to rank for and will deliver buying traffic much quicker than targeting more competitive keywords that you will never rank for. So start small first and get the traffic and the money coming in and then gradually begin to focus on the more competitive keywords.
Step Two: On Page Content
You've likely heard the phrase “Content is king” when it comes to Google. I'm not sure it's necessarily true in regards to search engine optimization, but it surely matters to your visitors. If you're putting out bad content, they aren't going to stick around for very long, they probably aren't going to come back, and they almost certainly aren't going to buy from you. Therefore content IS king, but not in the way many advocates imply.
When creating your content, it's also important to include the keyword you're trying to rank for within the content. This helps to let Google know what your page is about. But don't overdo it, because too much can be a bad thing. Back in the old days of the web, you could get rewarded by the search engines for simply repeating the keyword over and over again on the page. It's called keyword stuffing. Google tends to look down on such practices these days, so you would do well to avoid it. Just write naturally and you'll be fine.
Step Three: Backlinks
To put it simply, a backlink is when a web page links to webpage. The key to getting your web pages to rank for the keyword you want to rank for is to get other web pages to link to that page using the keyword you want to rank for. For example, if you're trying to rank for the keyword “make money online”, you should build links to your site that include those words in it. Doing this helps to let Google know what your site is about, and the better your links, generally, the higher you will rank.
Like with your on page optimization however, it's important not to overdo it. Make sure you diversify the back link text so that only around 30% of your backlinks contain the keyword you're trying to rank for. Anything higher than that may set off a red flag with Google that may cause them to ignore your links, or worse, penalize your site because of them, so be careful.
Despite what some would have you believe, backlinks are still the primary driver of search engine rankings, and are the most important search engine optimization technique you can implement. You can get every other step wrong and still do well if you get this one right.
These are just some of the basics, but if you put them into action, they will put you ahead of most of your competition.
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