SEO For Beginners: 6 Search Engine Optimization Tips
“Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users.”
- Phil Frost
Looking for no-nonsense SEO tips to boost your site’s search engine rankings to increase your lead generation organically? 6 easy-to-implement tactics that help increase your website's ranking and boost inbound traffic.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of generating traffic to websites by ensuring that they are well ranked in search engines for specific keywords or phrases. SEO can draw potential clients to the website, but SEO alone won't drive conversions. A business should have SEO as part of their broad marketing campaign which includes SEO, Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing tactics.
Organic Traffic: Organic Traffic refers to internet users hitting a site and staying there for several minutes (i.e., without clicking out). The higher your organic traffic levels — i.e., the more individuals who visit your site and then return — the better chance you'll have at converting some of those visitors into customers/clients.
Let's say that your keyword today is “API Security”. Even if you have the perfect article on everything related to API Security, there are so many other sites out there with similar content which means you will not show up in search results unless you have more specific topics surrounding your main topic. For example, you can write articles targeting AI API Security , API Security in the Cloud , On-Premises API Security, etc. There are endless ways to target related topics and you would be surprised at how many people are searching for them.
The more context you can add to your SEO strategy, the better your SEO rankings will be. That said, if you want to rank in organic search, it is important that you make sure you tackle all aspects of a strategic SEO strategy.
The SEO Strategy:
1) Optimize Your Site Structure:
Having a logical, user friendly and SEO optimized navigation is imperative. Scaling your SEO can largely be attributed to an optimized website structure. If you have been looking after your SEO strategy from day one, it may already be mapped out for you – if not, ask an SEO Specialist how they would map your SEO site structure. Utilizing Schema Markup on important pages is a great SEO practice that you can easily implement.
2) Optimize Your Content:
SEO isn’t just about getting the best keywords in front of search engines, it’s also about creating the best experience for your users. This means not only optimizing on-page SEO, with keywords and links, but making sure your overall site UX is excellent. User Experience must be at the forefront of all SEO activities.
3) Build SEO Authority:
The way to do this is by reaching out to high authority sites in your niche, who happen to rank well with SEO for highly searched terms. In short, link building through outreach can be a fast track to increasing your domain SEO authority when executed properly. It’s pretty time intensive, but the results are worth it.
4) SEO Right From The Start:
SEO can seem daunting at first, but you have to remember that SEO is not just about building links or getting traffic fast. It’s an ongoing process of maintaining a healthy balance between organic SEO and link building. What this does is keep your website on top of Google search rankings while avoiding any SEO penalties. This means faster scaling potential with less risk involved.
5) Optimize On-Page SEO:
Is important to really analyze user behavior on your site, so you can get a clear understanding of what keywords are driving traffic, which pages are receiving the most organic SEO love, etc. All these insights will help you to map SEO strategy accordingly. SEO is a holistic process, so it’s important to optimize your pages from both an SEO perspective and the user experience perspective.
On-page SEO is one of the easiest ways to improve organic search engine rankings. There has been a lot of discussion about whether SEO is dead and yes, SEO will never die because it needs to be continuously optimized like any other marketing campaign. However, due to Google’s Panda updates, SEO has evolved into something different than what we knew 5 years ago. The new era of SEO requires you to put more effort on creating quality content as opposed to simply targeting as many keywords as possible. This means that you should spend more time on improving user experience by adding more value through your content rather than trying to trick users/Google with irrelevant keywords just for the sake of SEO.
6) Develop Quality Backlinks:
SEO isn’t just about creating content – it is about building relationships with other publishers/website owners who have an audience interested in the same topics as you. When someone links to one of my blog posts on their social media or website, I always try to contact them personally and thank them so they may do the same for me at some point down the road.
In summary, an SEO strategy doesn’t have to be rocket science. At its core, SEO is about creating value for users and search engines alike. Just remember that great SEO takes time, but when executed correctly this organic traffic will snowball into massive revenue opportunities down the road. SEO won’t get you out of the gate quickly, but SEO can offer sustainable revenue growth over time. SEO is about making an investment that will continue to pay dividends for your business in the long-term. SEO should be considered an asset that requires maintenance, administration and support throughout its lifetime.
