SEO is an overwhelming subject. It may feel almost as elusive as Colonel Burgers KFC secret recipe! It, however, remains one of the most important aspects to master in the digital realm. We’ve made it easier for you.
The 101 of SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimizing websites to make them reach a high position in Google’s – or other search engines’ – search results. The art of SEO focuses on rankings in the organic (non-paid) search results.
Essentially SEO is the art of conforming to Google’s secret algorithms used to rank a websites search position or rank.
The search algorithms can be divided into these two categories:
1) On-page factors – The structure of your website, your site speed and the content of your site are all crucial on-page SEO factors.
2) Off-page factors – The number and quality of links pointing towards your site including social media activity. The more quality, relevant sites that link to your website, the higher your position in Google will be.
How Google works
It’s important to first understand how Google works. Search engines like Google follow links. Google comprises a crawler, an index, and an algorithm. The crawler – follows the links on the web. It ‘crawls’ around the internet 24/7 and saves the links to all pages found in a gigantic database called ‘the index’. This index is updated if the Google crawler visits your website again and finds new or revised web pages. Depending on the traffic on your site and the number of changes you make on your website, Google crawlers come around more or less often.
For Google to know of the existence of your site, there first must be a link from another site – one that is already in the index – to your site. If crawlers follow that link, it will lead to the first crawler-session and the first time your site is saved in the index. From then on, your website could appear in Google’s search results.
Google’s secret algorithm and SEO
Once Google has indexed your website, it can start displaying your site in search results. Google tries to match a certain search query with web pages that it has indexed. Example: ‘best tutor company cape town’ – will serve up websites that feature these keywords and links from other sites. To do so, Google has a specific algorithm that decides which pages are shown in which order.
Image credit: UCT Get Smarter – Digital Marketing
How these algorithms works remain Google’s best-kept secret.
Nobody knows exactly which factors decide the ordering of the search results. Just to keep us all guessing Google’s algorithm isn’t static. It changes regularly. The factors that determine the ordering and the importance of the different factors change very often. Although the algorithm is secret, Google does tell us which things are important. This process can be refined through testing and experimenting with SEO to determine the important factors and changes in these factors.
The value of links in SEO
Search engines determine how important a page is by the number of links pointing to your page. So, the more internal and external links there are on your website or page – the higher your Google ranking. Google wants to show the user the result that fits his or her search query best. If you want to appear high in the results for that specific search term, make sure your website fits that search term.
Holistic SEO
Google changes their algorithm between 350 and 600 times per year. It adapts to the dynamic influence of social media, and with that, SEO becomes more complicated. Their mission is to build the perfect search engine.
There’s more to SEO than meets the eye.
Image credit: UCT Get Smarter Digital Marketing Course
There are 4 factors to focus on that make for a holistic SEO strategy:
1) Good technical SEO – this is just it – ‘technical’ and is generally the domain of your web developer. Elements that need to be optimised here are: site speed, content hierarchy, meta tags, and crawlability. The information architecture of your site determines whether people can easily find content related to what they’re currently reading or are interested in. Because of that, reviewing and improving a site’s structure is one of the most essential pillars of good SEO. Read our top 10 tips for great information architecture.
2) Great user-experience (UX) – This is putting human centred design and customer centricity at the heart of what you do. UX is the fine art of going beyond the software and designing a website that understands what customers really want, why they want it and then making things useful, reliable, easy, delightful, and persuasive.
3) Quality content updated regularly – Focus on creating and sharing your expertise and information consistently. Writing content is a key aspect of Search Engine Optimization. To optimise your content strategy, you need to write a lot of copy related to the terms (keywords) your audience is searching for. Google then reads your text, indexes the text and ranks it. Your website will pop up more and more often, as you write more blog posts. All these new visitors being exposed to your websites top ranking are potential buyers. So, the increased traffic can translate into converted sales.
Keyword research is the first step in the SEO copywriting process.
It is an essential part of any SEO strategy. Before you write your website content you need to think about which search terms you want to be found for. This means understanding your audience and finding out which words they use when searching. Your website needs to answer the search question.
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Security is a huge ranking factor
4) Secure & attractive website – Google announced in 2014 that having an SSL certificate will be considered a positive ranking factor, so it’s worth the investment. HTPPS secures the connection to the website you are visiting. If you look at the address bar in the browser and find the lock icon on the left-hand side. Notice if the lock is closed – then the connection is secure. However, if the lock is open or another type of icon or message – then it’s not secure and vulnerable to attack. Once you switch over to HTTPS, you’ll find your rankings will actually improve over time. An attractive website is a simple site that covers the basics first. That means having a beautifully designed website with functional and intuitive information architecture. You are showing your customers some love by understanding and delivering on their needs.
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Beware of Black-Hat SEO tactics
In a bid to deliver on the promise of effective SEO some practitioners try to cheat the system. However, it’s not easy to fool Google and websites that apply any trickery will be penalized and are sometimes even removed from Google’s index. These are some of the unethical methods that Google frowns upon.
It’s important not to treat SEO in isolation. SEO doesn’t start with copywriting.
SEO is a holistic technique that starts with your website design and development and must follow a golden thread through your entire content marketing strategy. Don’t sweat the SEO stuff. We will walk you through every step of the way and ensure your website and content strategy rates highly and delivers the traffic your brand deserves.
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