Most likely, you’d have heard this cute abbreviation before but its meaning was rather unclear. We always see it in people’s bios; “Content Creator, Social media strategist, SEM, PPC, SEO, AMG, WYD..” but we never really thought to ask. Its kinda like the N-power program. We know the name but no one really gets what its about.
So seriously, whats this SEO?
Okay, lets start this off simply.
First off, let me tell you a short yet familiar story. If you’re a human being in the 21st century and you own a phone or a laptop with a working internet connection, chances are you use Google. From directing us in unfamiliar territory (you’ve arrived!) to finding the most insignificant yet useful information, its use is almost ubiquitous. Now, cue momentary flashback of you arguing with your airhead friend about 9ice’s Grammy (or lack of). He seemed to remember a Grammy Award being given to 9ice and you vehemently disagreed. Do you recall how you ended the argument? A simple Google search always saves us lots of vocal stress. Well, why?
Because Google is dedicated to showing the most relevant search results for a particular keyword.
Now, how did you search for this? I’m pretty sure, you fired up your browser, went to Google’s home page and before the words dried from your friend’s mouth, you typed “9ICE GRAMMY AWARD” and just like that, results were in your face like pimples.
Easy peasy, Lemon squeasy, Beats By Shizzi.
Yeah, real 9ice but how does all this long story affect SEO?
SEO is the art (or science) of making your website sexy to Search Engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of tweaking various factors in a bid to increase a website’s ranking on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for a particular Keyword. Its basically a series of operations and activities one practices to make a web page more attractive than other (competitor) web pages vying for ranking on the same keyword input!
Doesn't take a genius to figure out that having Google in your corner during a search is a real feather in your cap, especially for E - Commerce websites. Having a search engine optimized site that ranks in the first page for your best selling product means you do not need to search for customers. They literally come to you! Why? Well, alot of people would enter your site because people literally (alright, generally..) click on the first result that Google shows them(this means, increased traffic to your site). So now we have increased traffic to your site so that means more people asking relevant questions (increased inquiries) AND going down the marketing funnel to an eventual purchase!(Conversion, aka kaching!)
Does that make any sense?
Now, SEO is divided into two:
- Onpage Optimization: This involves all the processes one does on their actual webpage that improves rankings on the SERP. This includes optimizing keywords, metatags (yeah, these don’t work no mo’) meta descriptions, title tags and so much more. How can we do this? We’d treat this another time. Piece of cake, actually.
- Offpage Optimization: This is concerned with every operation one can do to improve their website’s chances of ranking better, without necessarily tweaking anything on their website. Think about it like various ways to get other sources to point to your site (e.g backlinks from reputed websites that link directly to yours) that’l get Google to see your page as a great place. Things like domain authority, page authority and trustworthiness of your site all come into play when Google ranks pages.
Alright then! By now, you should be getting a pretty clear picture of what SEO is. Next thing on your mind might be “Wow so how do implement this on my website?”
For now, I’ll like to drop one or two gems which if followed, will improve your rankings. Keep in mind that Google’s ultimate goal is to provide the best possible results for a particular keyword and will keep optimizing results till it gets it right. Another thing to consider is Google’s constant updates on their search algorithms so what works today might not work tomorrow, hence the need to constantly stay updated. Granted, it might take a bit of work but if these instructions are followed diligently, you’d be sure to rank higher than _______ (insert your favorite fictional Army General :D)
Lets Go:
Gold tip: Always use your focus keyword in the first paragraph of your content block.
- Sitespeed: Explain to your developer that you would like your website to run as fast as possible. Its a huge factor in rankings because a slowsite is nosite to Google. Life’s too fast for that. Tell her/him you want your website mobile optimized and responsive so it can automatically align content to fit the screen of the viewer.
- Indexing: Do Google’s bots crawl your site? This means your webpages are counted among the living during periodic screening for new pages by Google. How about we do a quick check right now?
Enter the url of your domain with “‘site” before it, example: “site:mysarsstory.com”
The results show all of your site’s pages that have been indexed, and the current metatags saved in the search engine’s index. If none of your pages appear, it means that your site has not been indexed and will not be found.
Remember that you’d need to submit it to Google for crawling before bots will reach your webpage. Goes without saying that indexing and sitemaps are very very important.
(Recommended apps: Google analytics, Google search console)
3) Content: Please make sure the content on your site matches the keywords you’re trying to rank for. Imagine someone is searching for safe Health products and they keep finding pictures of Health Size 5 footballs for sale on your site. The rate of exits from your site (bounce rate) is monitored by Google and you will be penalized and demoted in ranking for that keyword.
(Recommended apps: Yoast Wordpress Plugin)
Wow! You made it to the end of this journey. Of course there’s more than this, but we can make it work. Don’t think it’s some sort of insurmountable task because life’s very concept is defined by defeating obstacles.
Finally, if you get confused, Holla. I’m always down to talk SEO stuff.
Be Great.
