SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimization. Who knew three little words could cause such a feeling of panic and terror! Often, business owners are downright clueless when it comes to SEO. They know they should be paying attention to it, but they don’t really understand what it is. How the heck can you successfully optimize your site, if you can’t even grasp what that means? You can’t! Don’t worry, I’ve got your back! Let’s dive into the basics behind SEO, and how to make small changes that will make a difference!
Here’s the deal: SEO doesn’t have to be hard.
In fact, once you understand how search engines work, it is really easy!
Here’s how it works:
Search engines regularly do a sweep of your website, in hopes of finding relevant keywords that prove to them that your content is something their users care about. The more relevant your key words are, the more other sites link back to you, the more Google get’s excited to bump you to the top of it’s search results. That’s actually all it is. Pretty simple, huh?!
Google, Yahoo, Bing, all the search engines are designed to give users the most relevant links based on what they’re searching for. Think about it: if you were searching for luxury hand towels, but the first suggestion Google gave you was a link to a towel at The Dollar Tree, you probably would be puzzled. Search engines don’t want you to wonder why the heck they suggested something to you, because their job is to match users with the most relevant content available. If we start doubting their ability to give us what we’re looking for, it would be big time bad news for their bottom lines.
Search engines have automated systems, called “crawlers” that find links that allow them to reach a gajillion intertwined pages. Once they find the linking pages, they break down the codes and store them so that they can be recalled when someone does a search.
They use algorithms (a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer) to decide which sites are worthy of popping up when someone does a search.
So basically, think of search engines as little workers, driving around in cars, moving from street to street, deciding which streets connect and which ones lead to a brick wall. The workers know which streets are dead ends, which ones have low speed limits, and which ones lead to neighborhoods you probably don’t want to wind up in. They take all these things into consideration so that when someone asks what the fastest route from A to M is, or which roads to avoid completely, they’ll be able to spit out an answer instantly.
Now that you understand how SEO works, let’s get down to the important stuff: how to optimize your site, as painlessly as possible!
Here are the main things search engines look for when sweeping your site:
Relevant Content– Are you using keywords and descriptions that are aligned with what users are searching for?
Expert Status– Do other websites link to your site? If they do, it probably means you have something to say that users care about.
Site Performance– How fast is your site? Is the mobile interface easy to use? Do any links lead to broken pages?
Experience– Do you have a high bounce rate (meaning, do people leave your site quickly)? Is the site easy to navigate?
Many business owners make the mistake of assuming optimizing their site would be a dreadful experience, and that keeping SEO in mind when creating content would double their work load.
If you know me at all, you know doubling workload is something I deeply disagree with, so here are the no-fuss steps you can take today to get your website on track to become a SEO superstar!
- Focus on using a wide range of specific keywords (don’t know squat about keywords? Check out these tips!). For every single blog post, decide what your keywords will be. Don’t use “business tips” for every single article! Switch things up a bit so that you’re getting the same traffic by altering the keywords a little. Keep it diverse, baby! Use those keywords in your title, in the first sentence of your post, and throughout your entire article. That being said, BE NATURAL! SEO “stuffing”, aka using your keyword over and over in a weird, spammy way won’t get you anywhere! Google is smarter than that! Be sure to name every single image you upload to the post whatever your keywords are, using dashes instead of spaces. So, maybe for this post my images would be titled “SEO-tips”. Search engines don’t understand spaces, so if you have spaces in your image names, they will not register properly!
- Test your site’s speed, and make sure it’s as fast as possible! Long load times bother users, so search engines don’t appreciate it, either. You may want to consider removing galleries that use a flash player, and excessive videos and images. Be sure images are sized properly so they don’t take an hour to load. No one has time for that! Check out this free website speed test to see how you stack up!
- Guest post, and team up with other sites to get your links into the world! If Google sees that 94 other websites point to yours, they’re going to assume you know your stuff. Not sure where to start? Shoot me a message and I’ll come up with some ideas for you!
- Make sure users have nothing but good experiences while using your site. Test every single link to make sure it leads where it is supposed to (this is especially important if you often link to other people’s content, since you have no idea when they take something down or make a change!). Be sure your site is visually appealing, use images (that are named correctly!) to break up text, and try to have your entire website work in a loop. So, have a link to a different page of your site on each page. Keeping people on your site will help your bounce rate stay low, which is great for SEO! Click here to learn all about what a bounce rate is, and how to improve a high score!
See, SEO doesn’t have to be scary!
WordPress users, I have a little secret weapon to share with you! Drop what you’re doing and install Yoast, right this instant! It’s a FREE plugin that will make optimizing your blog posts a breeze! Every single post will get an SEO score, and you’ll get a clear list of what you need to improve to nail your SEO. It doesn’t get much easier, folks! Check out my explanation of Yoast here!
What about SEO do you find confusing? Leave your questions in the comments!
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