Search Engine Optimization: A Simple Guide to SEO Strategy

SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is the process of attracting targeted traffic to a website through organic or non-paid rankings on a search engine results page (SERP). Unlike paid results such as pay-per-click advertisements, organic search results listings are based on query searches and key terms.

Good SEO practices make it easier for searchers to find your website.

1. 1. Search engines drive Internet traffic. While social media content marketing can be an effective way to attract visitors to your website, search engines drive an extraordinary volume of online traffic. If you can optimize your website to rank near the top of a search engine results page (SERP), you can dramatically increase your website traffic.
2. 2. Organic results have a higher click-through rate. The average click-through rate for pay-per-click advertisements is less than three percent, while the average click-through rate for the top organic search result is around thirty percent.
3. 3. Optimized content is evergreen. After you post great content with appropriate search terms, your search traffic can grow without any additional investment. Although occasional updates may be necessary, the content requires little other maintenance. Paid ads, however, require continuous payments to keep the ads running.
4. 4. Good SEO increases the quality of traffic. Your website might come up on a SERP, but that doesn't necessarily mean it’s receiving quality traffic. For example, if you're in the swimming pool business and your website receives traffic from people interested in the game of pool—as in billiards—it's not going to help your business. The best SEO ensures that site visitors are actually interested in your product. This results in a lower bounce rate, which is a metric that measures the percentage of visitors who leave your homepage without going to another page.

Every search engine uses indexing software called a crawler that collects information about content on the Internet. The crawler places that information into an index, which the search engine's unique algorithm analyzes. The algorithm accounts for numerous ranking factors to determine the order in which it lists websites for a particular search query.

A great SEO strategy provides a crawler with the necessary information to effectively list your website on the search engine results page. There are many ways to optimize your ranking factors, including performing keyword research, increasing your page speed, creating relevant and high-quality content, focusing on internal link building, using meta and title tags, and making your website interface friendly to mobile devices.

Consider these basic ranking factors and SEO tools to improve your website’s position on a search engine results page:

1. 1. Know your audience. When developing an SEO strategy to optimize your landing page, you must understand your target audience. Knowing your target audience’s search queries can help you create quality content that answers their questions and maximizes your site's usability for their needs.
2. 2. Make sure search engine crawlers can decipher your site. In order for the search engine to index your website’s pages and subpages, they must be easily accessible. Try making a sitemap—a list of links to all the important pages on your site—so the crawler can discover those pages without difficulty. If your site has non-text media like infographics, videos, and photos, text into the HTML code so the crawler knows what that media is about.
3. 3. Perform keyword research. Use a keyword research tool or SEO platform to make sure you strategically use keywords with a high search volume. Keyword research should help you comprehend exactly what your audience is searching for, how they want to absorb that information, and how many people are searching for it.
4. 4. Create high-quality content. Once you know what your audience is searching for, produce engrossing and informative content that answers their search queries.
5. 5. Make a positive user experience. Your website should maximize your content's visibility and present it in a way that's easy to access. Increase your page speed by compressing images and upgrading to a premium web host service. Check that your content is readable and an appropriate length. Make your site mobile-friendly with a mobile-only website configuration and the elimination of pop-up windows.
6. 6. Select an SEO-friendly URL and page titles. When selecting your domain name, try to incorporate a high-volume keyword in a catchy and memorable way. Get a “.com” address, as opposed to a “.net,” “.biz,” etc. When structuring and titling your subpages, select a titling system that clearly states what each page is about. For example, "samplewebsite.com/understanding_topicname" is more effective than "samplewebsite.com/page1438."
7. 7. Implement technical SEO knowledge. If you have coding knowledge or can hire an SEO professional, incorporate items like meta tags and structured data markup—also called schema markup—to make it easier for crawlers to discover, organize, and present your website content. Meta tags are text snippets that describe your website's content to a search engine crawler. Meta descriptions only appear in your site's HTML source code and are not viewable on the actual page.

Depending on your level of technical skill, creating and implementing a successful SEO strategy for your business's website may or may not be within your scope. Even with limited technical knowledge, though, you can execute SEO strategies. If you have a larger business that requires the full range of SEO techniques, you might consider hiring an SEO professional or a digital marketing agency to assist you.

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