Search Engine Optimization : basic guide
I understand that entering this world is not an easy task, especially if you are a beginner who doesn’t have the knowledge to understand what SEO is all about. Therefore, I am going to describe a practical guide that will allow you to better understand what SEO is, how to handle it and execute it correctly.
To begin with, the first thing you have to know is the meaning of the word:
- What is SEO?
Search engine optimization is a way to improve the positioning of a web page in the search engines and helps marketing. This positioning will allow you to increase the visibility of your page to users and, therefore, increase the ranking of visits. - But, how does SEO work?
Each time a website is created, search engines use algorithms to collect information and sort it according to different factors, this in order to analyze the quality of the web page and its content and then give it a quality classification. As you modify your website, the search engines will re-evaluate their quality to improve or reduce the initial classification; it’s a process that remains constant.
Therefore, the purpose of SEO is to create sites that provide a pleasant experience to the user by offering a higher quality product. If the website doesn’t meet the quality requirements, they can be penalized and classified with negative points.
- What are those factors that classify the website?
There are many elements that influence the positioning of your website, therefore you must be aware of what will help or hurt you during the ranking of search engines. In a practical way, these factors are divided into two large groups: the factors that are inside the page, and the factors that exist outside it.
An accurate knowledge of each of these factors will allow you to make the most of SEO techniques so that your website has a greater visibility in the search engines. As a beginner, you must first identify those factors that influence your website and are handled by you: therefore, having knowledge of them can lead you to obtain a good positioning within the search engines.
- What are the factors of SEO positioning within the website?
The following elements within the web page will allow your site to be more accessible to the search engines, helping you to obtain greater visibility of the users in its different result pages - Give your website an easy and easy-to-use design
Every beginner in SEO must understand that, when creating a website, the choice of a simple and easy to use design will lead to more visits to sell better. This is because users can find what they are looking for quickly and easily. In addition, a good design that people can understand and that is visually attractive will make them stay longer on the page and thus avoid a greater number of bounces.
Another way that the design of your website influences the SEO, is the speed with which it loads quickly. You have to remember that the objective of the search engines is to offer the user the best connection experience, so their search engines classify web pages according to their speed, giving them a greater position by positioning them to those who are faster.
In order to increase the speed of your page, the first thing you have to do is to optimize your website so that it can be accessed through different mobile devices, this will allow you to expand your number of visitors since it has been proven that most users connect through these means.
Then, to prevent the page from being delayed in the load as the number of visits increases, you must add a cache plugin to the site. These storage compartments will make the website run much faster, lower bounce rates and give you a good search engine ranking.
- Domains that position you in SEO
The name of the URL of your website is one of the first elements that will help you position yourself in the search engines. Ideally, you select a keyword and attach it to the URL of the main page, in this way, when a user places the word in the search engines, they will directly relate your website to the word you are looking for, so you will get positioning yourself in the results.
When choosing the name of the link, avoid long URLs because they will affect your visibility in the search engines. One of the recommendations of SEO is that the shorter the URLs, the easier they are to copy, paste and share; so limit yourself to URL with less than 50 characters, 3-5 words separated by a hyphen (-) and containing keywords.
- Keywords that give power to your website
Also known as the fundamental pillar of SEO. Learn to relate the keywords well with your content, if you get it you will have guaranteed more than 80% of the positioning of the search engines. However, you should avoid its excessive and meaningless use, since they can cause the opposite effect. So use this powerful tool with wisdom.
The easiest way to use this element to optimize your visibility in search engines is that the keywords are mentioned naturally throughout the text so you feel a fluid reading and not forced. To help you with this task, you can use synonyms so that the text is not repetitive and is not considered by search engines as a keyword stuffing.
In addition, there are strategic places for keywords to help with the SEO of your website, these are the title, the description of the title, the H1 tag and the first 100 words of the article. Always locate the keywords in these places, but keep the titles as short and accurate as possible, try not to use more than 65 characters in them and avoid irrelevant keywords.
- Create high-quality content for a greater number of visits
Another key element that will help you get a good score from the search engines, is to offer a website with good quality content. This step may be difficult at first because of the amount of competition you have to overcome, however, there is always something new to talk about; just look for the topics that you are passionate about and that provide some information.
Once you decide the content of your website, an easy way to organize it is to do it by breaking down categories and subcategories. This systematic classification gives search engines and visitors a simple way to analyze content and classify it, thus achieving a good SEO position.
It should be noted that this content must be original, that it does not have errors of spelling and grammar, and that it exceeds the 1500 words; this guarantees that useful and valuable information is being provided to the user. Otherwise, your website could lose points in the ranking of search engines or even be penalized.
You can also increase your SEO ranking by updating content that you already have on your website, remember that each time you modify it, the search engines will evaluate your content again to give you a new rating. So take the opportunity to revitalize your website and attract new visitor traffic.
Do not limit yourself with small changes, if you want to draw the attention of the search engines, make shocking changes: change several paragraphs, update the information, modify the design of the page; A constant activity of your site will make you obtain a better positioning in the search engines.
On the other hand, to help make your content useful and easy to understand, you can add toolboxes that allow users to expand their knowledge about the topic they are reading. Besides, dividing the content into small fragments will help website visitors not get tired with long paragraphs.
Make these 4-5 lines by dividing them with bullets or numbers, that solution is ideal for people to read, analyze and understand information quickly, thus guaranteeing your visitors a pleasant experience when browsing the content of your website. Because of this, these elements are considered positive points when it comes to SEO classification.
To increase the quality of your content more, you can attach citations, references or sources; You can also include multimedia content such as images, videos, PowerPoint presentations, etc. These details are considered signs of good quality by search engines, as long as they are relevant and useful for users.
- Links that connect you with SEO
The correct use of links in your website is an excellent way to obtain a good positioning in search engines of SEO. This is because each link is for the search engines, an indicator of good quality, therefore they can easily analyze the page to give a positive rating.
If you want to add links, make sure they are essential for the content and connect your visitors to web pages with a higher level domain, this action will translate into search engines as a sign that they can trust the site. In addition, links need to be related to niches that have authority, not just low-level pages.
But be careful, the fact that you are a beginner does not mean that you can exaggerate with the use of links. One way to correctly execute the use of outbound links as an SEO strategy is to limit them to 2-3 per article. A higher number of links on your website can be interpreted by search engines as irrelevant, damaging their ranking.
Likewise, like all your content, this is another element that you have to constantly update because you have to verify that the links work correctly and replace them otherwise. Remember that this factor is a direct path between your page and your users, if there is good communication it will increase the traffic of visits to the website.
You should also consider that users get bored easily with pages of unnecessary content to what they are looking for. So make the links correctly and connect each link with a content of good quality and that are intimately related.
Stop being a beginner in SEO and trust the information you have learned with this guide. Go ahead, explore it so that you can get the first positions of the search engine results pages.