When you don't understand the basic fundamentals of SEO, all the buzzwords can be overwhelming. Whether a company is conducting an in-house SEO campaign or hiring a third-party technology firm to assist, it is imperative the hiring manager be empowered to understand the topic at hand. To help mitigate potential confusion, this guide will take you through the basics to set you up on the road to success.
1. On-site SEO
Imagine you were to build a house with a bad foundation: you'd have numerous issues, regardless of how good it looks. It's the same for a website and SEO. You need a great foundation for your website, which consists of the following things:
- Internal link architecture
- Unique text content
- Bot accessibility
- URL structure
- Sitemaps
- Server response codes
2. Unique website content
Content is king when it comes to SEO; Specifically original, non-duplicate content is what you need. You should scan your website for duplicate content, and remove anything necessary. There are many tools available to automatically scan your site, including Siteliner. If your content isn't original or useful, then Google’s algorithm will dock you points in SERPs.
3. Title tags
The title tag on your homepage is one of the most vital components of your entire website. You need to choose appropriately based off of actual business metrics when you decide what to include in the title tag.
4. High-quality backlinks
Backlinks are extremely important for SEO. Simply put, they are the foundation to Google’s algorithm. Once you've got a great site structure in place, you'll need to focus on building high-quality backlinks. A backlink is simply a hyperlink that directs back to your site. It's important to focus on quality over quantity and aim for backlinks on sites that have high domain authority (are very credible) to really help boost your SEO.
5. Continuous marketing
Google needs to see that you have a legitimate site with authentic and frequent traffic. For you, this means all your content needs to be top quality. Your blog content on your own website should have compelling topics. Everything you promote on your social media sites should be used to drive traffic to your blog. Your website homepage and interior pages need to provide insightful, informative information that will provide value for the reader. Remember too, it's crucial that your website is mobile-friendly. Especially since Google has introduced mobile-first indexing, which basically means if your website isn't mobile friendly, you won't rank.
6. Pay attention to local SEO
Have you ever thought about how businesses rank towards the top of Google with their address and the star ratings next to their business? This is all a result of a Google My Business page.If you've ignored your Google My Business page in the past, then it's time to start paying attention. Make sure you have these measures in place:- Ensure all of your business information is correct and consistent across directories & your website (address, name, and phone)- Ensure your photos are up to date- Be proactive with your reviews- Ensure that your primary category listed is aligned with the products or services you offerNow that you've got some of the basic understandings of SEO, you'll be on the road to SEO success!Call KitelyTech on (800) 274 2908 today for more information.
