Every online company needs to use search engine optimization (SEO) as a marketing strategy, but it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the jargon and technical terms. In particular, if you are just starting out. In this primer, we’ll examine some foundational SEO principles that can be used by any company, no matter how small, to improve their site’s visibility in search engine results.
1. Website architecture is ground zero for search engine optimization (SEO).
Isn’t it wonderful when you go to a website you’re unfamiliar with and can immediately locate the information you need? Conversely, how fast do you give up if you can’t locate what you’re searching for on a foreign site?
Site structure is important not only for human visitors but also for the search engine crawlers’ use in obtaining information.
You may put a lot of time and effort into other SEO components, but it would all be for nothing if these bots couldn’t simply access all the pages on your website.
To that end, how should a website be organized? In a nutshell, it should go Overview > Categories > Pages.
The homepage should be self-explanatory, but the category sections and individual pages should be tailored to your specific website.
The category pages of your online store will most likely contain groupings of related goods (like shoes and hats). In contrast, the product pages will be the actual products themselves (e.g., a specific hat or a specific brand of shoe.)
Navigation from the homepage to the categories should be simple (often through a menu), as should navigation within the categories to the individual pages. (You may also want to utilize subcategories if your site is really vast.)
Explore some of your favorite websites to learn more about their layout.
If you already have a site up and running, the good news is that if you used either DomainRooster Website Builder or WordPress, the structure of your site is probably OK (and if it isn’t, it will be straightforward to update on both platforms).
You should think about site structure from the beginning of the process if you’re creating a new website.
The bad news is that if a designer created your website, its structure might not be SEO-friendly, particularly if your website is older. Perhaps it’s time to start again with a new website that follows a more organized design.
Note: Other, more technical characteristics of site structure (such as the usage of Javascript) might also negatively influence SEO. To keep things straightforward, we won’t go into them here, but if you’re concerned about how they could harm your site, you can learn more from our guide to technical SEO issues.
2. Keywords are crucial for SEO. Because words are the foundation of search, you must learn the phrases people use to find companies like yours online.
This is the fundamental process of keyword research. No matter how well-designed your website is, no one will ever discover it if you don’t optimize it for search engines.
If you’re just getting started with SEO, tennerr’s SEO tool’s keyword recommendations are a great place to go for inspiration. There are advanced methods for finding keywords, including SEMRush. When doing keyword research, keep these fundamentals in mind:
- Pay close attention to the search volume of the terms you investigate, and steer clear of those with few or no monthly searches.
- Remember that you may face stiff opposition if you try to get to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) in a highly competitive area. Find a happy medium between a term’s search volume and the challenge of getting a high position for that keyword.
- Keep your attention on a single keyword phrase on each page; otherwise, you risk diluting your own SEO efforts by competing with yourself.
- Avoid keyword stuffing – Using your text in your text is essential, but overusing it might have the opposite effect.
- It’s also crucial that the keywords you’re targeting appear in substantive, detailed content that answers the questions and solves the problems of your target audience.
- This involves providing as much detail as possible on the characteristics and advantages of a product or job on product pages and about a subject on blog sites.
I’m sure this guide teaches all you need to know about search engine-optimized writing.
That wraps up our primer on keywords; however, if you want to learn more about keyword analysis and implementation, check out this resource.
3. The importance of links cannot be overstated when discussing search engine optimization
Like humans, search engines learn the web by following links. If a highly authoritative website like BBC News connects to yours, search engines will see it as evidence that your site is an expert in the subject area it covers and give it a higher chance of ranking for relevant keywords.
Two types of links are significant to your site’s success: links to and from other websites and connections inside your own site.
Gaining external connections may be time-consuming, but the benefits are well worth the effort. This post will teach you the proper techniques for constructing links for your website.
Obviously, you have more say over internal connections, so it’s important to exercise caution while using them.
Keep in mind that search engines can’t index your content if they can’t locate any connections. Make sure every page is linked to at least one other page on your site.
Be mindful of the anchor text you use for your internal links (anchor text being the words you click on to follow a link, often shown in blue and underlined).
Utilizing your target keyword as anchor text for all of your internal links is tempting. While this makes sense for navigation links, it is not the best choice for more detailed anchor text in places like blog articles. The aforementioned DomainRooster SEO tool is one such instance.
4. Focus on your immediate vicinity.
Local search engine optimization is essential if your company has a physical presence (like a store or bar) or provides a job to a particular geographic region (like a window cleaner or tree surgeon).
Why? Since local SEO will increase your visibility in Google Maps results like the one shown below.
First things first: create your Google My Business page. Using tennerr’s Website Builder on the Business Plus plan or above makes this a breeze because of the tool’s in-built compatibility with Google My Business.
Conclusion
These four Tips will provide you with a good foundation for SEO and should be enough to make a site that can rank well in Google. We recommend this SEO guide for newcomers for more (and more in-depth) guidance.
