Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)  Search Engine Optimisation, also referred to as SEO, helps search engines understand the content of your webpage and will display pages that are relevant based on users’ search queries. The purpose of SEO is to rank pages first on the search engine results page (SERPs), driving traffic to your site.   SEO is a component of digital marketing and can be used by any website. It helps to enhance a site’s visibility on search engines like Google or Bing. If your site sells products, services, or simply provides information on a specific topic, SEO can drive traffic and increase online visibility. The more online presence you have, the higher the chances of you being discovered.    Benefits and importance of SEO SEO is a crucial element when it comes to marketing. It helps sites appear in the search results page. Increase in customers: SEO involves the use of target keywords, i.e. words your potential customers are using, resulting in relevant traffic.  Website traffic: Optimised sites get more traffic which helps increase brand awareness. ROI: Putting money into marketing campaigns and websites, if your site performs well, you reap the benefits of your investment. Reputation: Ranking on top spot improves trustworthiness of your site, so people trust you.  How does SEO work? ​ How does google figure out what pages to place in the search engine results page (SERP) for any search query? How does this drive traffic? Search engines crawl the web for any relevant page to the query, and store it which is the index. When a search is made, Google pulls a page from the index. Google’s algorithm uses ranking factors like quality of the content, relevance, and website it belongs to, etc. When people interact with the pages, Google then identifies needs that are being met and not being met, and stores it in the algorithm.  You need to make sure your content is high-quality and satisfies Google’s experience, expertise, authority, and trust requirements (E-E-A-T). SEO Best Practices Good quality: Google search engines ensure they pick out the best content that is out there. So, you should always ensure to produce useful and credible content. Keyword: Make sure you keep keyword intent in mind, while trying to figure out what words users may use to search a query. Patience: SEO takes time. It may take a lot of time for you to see the results of your SEO efforts, so be patient and don’t give up. Measure: Track and measure your performance using various tools to see how your strategies are doing. Maintain content: Ensure to produce relevant and fresh content regularly, – which is crucial for Google’s ranking factor , as well as make sure to continually update your existing content to preserve SEO value and drive consistent traffic.

External Links External links, also called hyperlinks, are websites that link to yours. Similarly, if you link to another website, this is also external linking. This is an important factor in SEO and Digital Marketing. Include descriptive words in anchor text that is relevant to the keyword in the target page. Ensure to use various anchor texts in order to enhance context. Why should you use external links? According to top SEOs, external links are the most important ranking source. They provide users with extra information that users can use to access more in-depth content on relevant topics, which enhances their understanding. External links help search engines understand the content of the webpage and how relevant it is, which helps in indexing and ranking. By analysing websites that link your site, it helps search engines know how your site’s authority and trustworthiness.  When search engines see highly reputable sites linking to yours, they view this as a sign of quality and relevance. External links drive traffic to your site from users who are interested in the content you have to offer, which can result in an increase in conversions and engagement. Metrics search engines use to determine value of external links: Credibility of linking domain Popularity of linking page How relevant the content of target page and source page are Number of links going to the same page Number of root domains that link to target page How to enhance your external links? Study has shown external links are the single most crucial factor for attaining rankings. This is because external links are difficult to manipulate and is the best way to determine how popular the web page is. Google views these links as “vote of confidence” and the pages that are the most popular and relevant would appear first in Google’s results pages. Descriptive link text This lets users know where the link will take them and what they can find in the target page. For example instead of “click here” or “to know more”, opt for more description that reflects the target page. This makes content more valuable and improves user experience. Optimize anchor text  Anchor text is a clickable hyperlink. It should be relevant and descriptive to the target page. This helps users as well as search engines to understand the content and context of the link. You could also use the nofollow tag for external links that you do not want to link to.

Improve Search Engine Rankings A component of digital marketing; search engine optimization (SEO) is helping websites rank higher on the search engine results page (SERPs) by looking for relevant web content on your page and what users search for. Customer  A big part of SEO is understanding your customer. You need to know what and the reasons why users look for something on the web. Here are some reasons:  Awareness: Customers are aware there is a problem, so they start looking for solutions. E.g. “flat tire” Consideration: They are aware of their problem and now they look to find a solution that best fits their needs. They may search for solutions using keywords that match their needs. Purchase: The customer is ready to buy and is usually aware of who they will purchase from. Keyword Keywords are words and phrases customers use to perform a search. For example, ‘bicycles online’ and ‘where can i buy bicycles online’ are both keywords. Keep in mind to match your keywords with what users use to search for products and services. Ensure to place your keywords in the page title, page content, and metadata  Utilise relevant keywords to your location, businesses, and services. Make sure to not overuse keywords as it can negatively impact your SEO. Update content  Frequent modifications to your website can help search engines scan and index your site more often. Ensure to remove content you no longer require or any content that is irrelevant.  You can also use sitemaps to allow search engines to find new content as well as update existing content. Backlinks  Search engines look at other websites that have linked to yours, in order to rank your web pages. Search engines view these external links as a “vote of confidence” in the relevancy, accuracy, and usefulness of the content. Links from reputable sites are more helpful than less reputable sites. The more reputable websites link to you the higher it will rank. Use of meta tags Meta tags are website codes that do not show in the web page. This tag gives information to the search engine and browsers about your content. Common meta tags are: Meta description: what your page is about. It shows in the search results page. Meta title: heading of the page that shows in the browser Alternative text: text that describes images. This is crucial for people who are blind and cannot see the image. It’s important to regularly keep up to date with SEO techniques as it is ever changing and can hugely impact your web content.  

Types of SEO Introduction to SEO Do you own a website? But let me tell you, if you just own a website, it won’t get you traffic from anywhere on your website. And now to get traffic, you will definitely need SEO services for your website. But do you know where you can start? You can hire your in-house team, a digital marketing agency or a Freelance SEO.  In today’s digital age, a strong online presence is essential for businesses to thrive. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays an important role in improving your website’s visibility and attracting organic traffic. There are various types of SEO strategies that can help you achieve your goals. In this blog post, we will explore the different types of SEO and discuss how they can contribute to your website’s success.   What are the types of SEO? On-Page SEO: This refers to optimizing the elements directly within your website’s control. It involves optimizing your website’s content, structure, and technical aspects to improve its search engine ranking. Some key elements of on-page SEO include: Keyword Optimization: Using relevant keywords throughout your website’s content, including titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body text. Content Quality: Creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content that provides value to your target audience. Meta Tags: Optimizing meta titles and descriptions to accurately represent your content and entice users to click through. URL Structure: Creating clean and descriptive URLs that include relevant keywords. Image Optimization: Using alt text and optimizing image file sizes to improve search engine visibility and load times. Mobile Optimization: Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly to cater to the growing number of mobile users. Off-Page SEO: This involves building external links to your website from other reputable websites. These links, known as backlinks, signal to search engines that your website is valuable and relevant. Off-page SEO strategies include: Link Building: Acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry. Social Media Marketing: Promoting your content on social media platforms to increase visibility and generate backlinks. Guest Posting: Writing guest posts on other blogs in your niche to build your brand and earn backlinks. Directory Submissions: Submitting your website to relevant online directories. Local SEO: Optimizing your website for local search results if you have a physical location. Technical SEO: Technical SEO focuses on optimizing the technical aspects of your website to improve its crawlability and indexability by search engines. This includes factors such as:   Website Speed: Ensuring your website loads quickly to provide a positive user experience and improve search engine rankings. Mobile-Friendliness: Making your website accessible and easy to use on mobile devices. XML Sitemaps: Creating an XML sitemap to help search engines understand the structure of your website. Robots.txt: Using a robots.txt file to instruct search engine crawlers which pages to index and which to avoid. HTTPS: Implementing HTTPS to secure your website and improve user trust. Schema Markup: Using schema markup to provide search engines with additional information about your content, such as product details or event dates.

What is Organic Search? Organic search, also referred to as natural search, are unpaid search results. The opposite to pay-per-click advertising (paid search results). Organic search results are based on the user’s search intent, links, authority, and other organic search rankings.  Organic vs. Paid Search Organic search involves: Free of cost More effective in the long run Boosts unpaid rankings in search results  Requires continuous efforts to display sites at the top of the page Maintenance of SEO strategies required Paid search involves: Requires a cost  Good for short term results  Ranks site at the top of the page quickly  Boosts paid rankings in search results Why is organic search important? Organic search strategies in digital marketing have been proven to be effective in the long-term, in contrast to paid search results, despite it providing immediate results. Organic sites are often more trusted, leading to higher conversion rates and greater return on investment (ROI). Cost-effective. Companies can leverage the cost-effectiveness of organic search. Paid search results can be costly to implement. Organic traffic costs nothing at all, especially if you use the right SEO techniques. It doesn’t have a budget and companies can continually expand without worrying about their expenses. 2. Competitive advantage. An organic search improves the visibility of the targeted keywords. When used effectively, there would be no need for paid strategies.3. Long-term results. Organic search can offer optimised websites for a longer time, as they don’t rely on cost-per-click expenses. Factors impacting organic search All businesses like to be in the top three ranking pages of Google. Various factors can get websites to the premium spot on the SERP. Backlink. A link from a website that links to the company’s website. Backlinks help search engines understand how relevant a website is. Backlinks ensure organic traffic and index websites. Internal and external link. Websites need to be ranked in order to be ranked. Internal links direct you to an internal page on a website, this helps search engines know about the structure of the website and increase its visibility. External links direct users to a page on a different website.  Media. Adding images and videos along with written text can provide SEO benefits and rank higher in search results. It also leads to conversions and revisits.  Technical. Page speed is an important factor, as the quicker the page loads, the higher it ranks. Apart from the page speed, length of URL is important. Shorter URLs rank better in search results, they are also easy to type and remember, improving user experience. Encryption. Most websites support HTTPS, which is a secure connection. Using HTTP displays a not secure sign next to the domain which can cause users to leave the website. Google values HTTPS a lot more and ranks it higher in SERPs Measure organic search If a company does not measure how its performing, it could lose out on opportunities to boost organic search traffic. By using different metrics, they can better understand the site’s performance and boost their ranking in google search. Page views. Offers page views per session with total pages visitor visits on a certain page.  Bounce rate. Percentage of visitors that leave a page without viewing other pages. This could be due to slow load time or a page doesn’t contain much information. The quicker a user leaves the page, the higher the bounce rate. Keywords. Businesses have to track their keywords to ensure their organic SEO strategy is effective. They need to identify which keywords are most important for their business and they can use google analytics to measure the performance. Visitors. This tracks the number of websites on a site and how interested they are in a site. Businesses should ensure to create engaging content that will rank higher and boost traffic.

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? Search Engine Marketing uses paid advertisements as a strategy in digital marketing to increase the visibility of a website and rank higher in search engine results page (SERPs). Companies pay to get their products featured on top of the SERPs and those appear as “sponsored”. These paid ads are commonly referred to as “pay-per-click” ads and come in various forms like, text-based ads and product listing ads or shopping ads, that let consumers see crucial information at first glance.  SEO vs. SEM Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of paid advertisement, where companies pay Google to feature their website on top of the results page. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is different from SEM, as SEO doesn’t rely on paying Google for clicks and traffic, instead focuses on optimizing content and keywords to earn a high rank.  Both ways are a highly effective part of the marketing strategy. SEO is a useful tool to ensure continual traffic at the top of the funnel, whereas SEM is great to drive conversions at the bottom of the funnel. How does SEM work? While SEO relies on content optimization to boost organic traffic, SEM relies on targeted ads to drive paid traffic.  What are the steps to an effective SEM?  Conduct keyword research Find the one with the most search volume Identify a space in the SERPs to place the keyword Come up with a text-based ad to place in the page Calculate the cost per click (CPC) Pay per click campaigns, means marketers pay search engine providers every time a user clicks an ad. The revenue accumulated from consumers buying the product via the ad should be higher than the cost of PPC. SEM Keyword Research Before you select keywords, it’s important to first conduct a thorough research of keywords relevant to your business. You can use Google Ads Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs. Next, go for words with a high search volume and then you can go ahead and set up your ad. Best SEM Practices Ad: Independent ads users see Campaign: Highest level in google ads account. A single ad can have numerous ad groups. Campaigns allow you to create budgets, target audience, and apply these to all ad groups Keyword: Terms bid for in each ad group Ad group: In the campaign, ads groups organize campaigns by a common theme. Each ad group can contain multiple ads and a set of keywords. Optimise Landing pages  It’s important to make sure your landing pages are relevant to the ad that got your customers to you in the first place. This will help rank higher, drive website traffic, and increase conversion rates. Setting up PPC campaigns Pay Per Click campaigns revolve around a certain theme depending on the business objective. Ensure to keep your ad campaigns organised. AD Auctions  An ad auction process begins every time a user enters a keyword into the search engine. To be part of the auction, you need to first identify the keywords you want to bid on and calculate the cost per click. If google identifies your keyword with the keyword the user has searched for, your ads will be part of the ad auction.  How do Ads win the Ad auction? Not every single Ad will appear in the search query. The ad auction considers many factors before placing your ad in the search query.  Maximum Bid: The amount you are willing to pay for a click. Quality Score: Measures the overall quality of your advertisement. Google measures both these actors before placing your advertisement. The calculation is known as ad rank (Max. Bid x Quality Score). A high quality score can help you score higher in the ad position at lower costs. Because Google likes ads that are related to what users search for.

SEO Meta Tags In digital marketing, meta tags are HTML code snippets, present in the source code, that provide valuable information about search engines and users. Optimisation of Meta tags are crucial, because they help drive traffic, impact click-through rates, and increase search rankings. How do Meta Tags work? Meta tags help search engines understand what the content of your webpage is all about. Meta tags use the <meta> tag and are placed in the <head> section of your page.  Best Meta Tags for SEO Meta Title The meta title tells the search engine what the main heading of your page is. The title is usually the first piece of information users see before deciding to click on the site. So ensure the title is relevant to the search intent, make use of the target keyword, and keep it brief. Meta Description  The meta description provides an outline of your content. Search engines display it in the snippet of the search results. It’s important because according to Google, meta description provides a short summary of the content to inform and convince users that’s what they are exactly looking for. Keep it brief, but descriptive, and relevant to search intent and keyword. Meta Robots Meta robots help search engines to decide whether they should crawl your webpages. It’s important to add the right attribute to your tags, if not, then it could lead to a negative impact for your site’s presence in search rankings. Here are the attributes to add to your tag: Index: to index content Noindex: to not index Follow: to crawl links on the page Nofollow: not to crawl links on the page Use Meta robot only if you want Google to crawl a certain way. Meta Viewport Meta viewport lets you adjust and control the width and of the screen so it’s compatible on desktop, tablet, or mobile. This is vital, because it indicates to Google that your webpage is mobile-friendly and will rank higher in mobile search results. Meta Charset The meta charset is the specific character encoding for the HTML document. It tells the browser what character encoding to use for the web page to show desired content. Common character sets:  UTF-8: Character encoding for Unicode ISO-8859-1: Character encoding for the Latin alphabet If the wrong encoding is used, then certain characters will be displayed incorrectly, which can lead to bad user experience. Some problems that may arise: Search engines will not comprehend content No backlinks High bounce rate Meta Refresh Redirect The meta refresh redirect tag tells the browser to redirect to another URL. However, it is advised you should not use them for reasons mentioned below. Can confuse users Not supported by all browsers Pages need to be analyzed before seeing a different URL, which requires some time.  It’s important to also ensure you include a canonical meta tag which lets search engines know which URL is the main one, when there is a duplicate or a similar site.  Therefore, it’s advised to use a 301 redirect instead.