Everything You Need to Know About SEO

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Nowadays, every business or individual with a website or blog has heard about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This marketing strategy has been around for quite some time, yet many businesses still don’t know a single thing about it. SEO is the foundation for building online visibility for your website and individual web pages. Therefore, if you want your content about NFL expert picks, for example, to reach your target audience, your content and the page it’s on need to be properly optimized. 

It all comes down to ranking factors and how much attention you pay to each and every one of them. Now, there are plenty of ways you can do that, and major search engines like Google have provided clear guidelines every web owner should follow if they want to rank high on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about SEO. 

What Is SEO?

SEO is a cost-effective strategy that helps improve website viability and brand awareness, boost exposure and authority, etc. SEO revolves around optimizing your website and specific web pages for search engines so that search engine crawlers can index your content and match it with the user intent. The main factor that combines the context of your web pages and user intent is keywords. 

Believe it or not, SEO may have been an optional marketing strategy once, but it’s quite mandatory these days, especially considering how competitive and crowded the online market is today. By using specific keywords, which are short phrases consumers usually use to search for something online, you help search engines to place your content, products, or services right in front of your target audience. That being said, SEO takes time to develop and produce viable results, which is why many businesses neglect it, as they don’t have patience for it.

SEE ALSO: 3 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Common Myths About SEO

There are a lot of myths surrounding SEO, and it can be hard to know what to believe. To help clear things up, here are a few SEO myths you should be aware of. For example, one common myth is that SEO is all about keywords. While keywords play a vital role, they’re just one part of the puzzle. Your website needs to be optimized for more than just keywords to rank well in search engines. 

Another myth is that SEO is expensive. As mentioned before, SEO is cost-effective, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money on SEO. Even a small step in the right direction can prove very useful. That said, yet another SEO is that you have to be an expert to do it right. Although expertise is always helpful, SEO isn’t rocket science. As long as you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you can learn everything you need about SEO and kick-start your strategy how you see fit. 

How Do I Know if My Website Is Optimized for Search Engines?

If you want to ensure that your website is optimized for search engines, you can continuously monitor your website’s performance and other relevant factors using tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, for example. The essence of SEO is to have a functional website that is fast, user and mobile-friendly, secure, easy to navigate, and rich with valuable and relevant content, among other things, of course. 

SEO evolves depending on how search engine algorithms change, so you’ll have to make the necessary adjustments each time there’s a major algorithm update. The purpose of this endeavor is to make sure consumers get the best possible results for their search queries. Google expects websites that want to rank high to deliver the best content and the absolute best user experience, for that matter. 

What Are Some Common SEO Techniques?

SEO is based on three major tactics that every web owner should pay close attention to. These tactics include:

• Technical SEO – Focuses on website performance and functionality by allowing you to improve website speed and page loading time, ensure mobile-friendliness, improve website navigation, and so on.
• On-page SEO -This technique helps optimize pages and individual elements for search engines by helping you optimize title tags, meta descriptions, URLs, and so on. On-page SEO audit also helps you identify issues like redirects, errors, duplicate content, and so on that may hurt your rankings.  
• Off-page SEO – This technique focuses on activities outside your website like link building, guest posting, content marketing, and so on. 

SEO is all about improving your website to rank higher in search engine results pages and thereby attract more organic traffic and qualified leads. If your website is not well-optimized, it simply won’t be visible online as much as you’d like to.