You may have already heard of SEO or search engine optimization, especially if you have your website and care about your website traffic. But if you never heard of it. Don´t worry.
In this blog post, I´m going to tell you what SEO is and even share some tips with you, so that you can use the newly learned SEO knowledge directly on your website. So that your site gets higher search rankings and finds its way to the top web pages of search engines.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the optimization of your website for search engines. SEO is a great way to get higher search results with your website on search engines. It can help businesses of all sizes but is especially useful for small businesses that want to improve their visibility online and reach more customers. Who doesn´t want that?
And all that without spending money on google ads or other search engines. Especially if you are a small business, paying for your website to show up at the top of search engines, is not always an option.
SEO is all about on and off-page optimization. Including targeting specific keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business, along with relevant content on your website. But this is probably a no-brainer. You can also improve your SEO by using the right text forms and quality pictures. Another overlooked factor is link building. With SEO every little detail counts.
What is Search engine optimization and how does it help your business?
As I already said SEO stands for Search engine optimization, meaning the process of optimizing your web pages to get more organic search traffic on them. SEO can help you rank higher on the search engine results pages.
What is the search engine results page?
The search engine results pages, also known as SERP, are basically the lists of websites that show up when you search certain words or words queries, on the search engine of your choice. The search engine results page first shows websites with paid ads.
A website with advertising
You can recognize those pages by the little “ad” in front of the domain name. Those websites paid to be at the top. That’s one way to be one of the first websites. Of course for the organic search results, you have to scroll a little bit further down.
But paying for advertising is sometimes no option. Especially if you just started your business and the budget does not allow you to pay for advertising. Just so your page is the first website that is shown on search engines.
However, the topic of this article is not how you rank with ads. It’s about ranking without it. We want to show you how you can rank with search engine optimization, and that in a natural way, without spending a large amount of money.
Why is ranking on search engines so important?
When people are looking for information online, they often use major search engines like Google, Bing, or others, to find it. If your website isn’t ranking high enough to be one of the first results (without paid advertising), you may be doing something wrong with SEO if you have started with SEO yet. The further down your website is the fewer people get to see your page. Which can be fatal over time. Your website gets no traffic, which leads to no visitors, meaning wasted potential clients. If no one is visiting your site, how do they know that your business even exists?
How does SEO help?
SEO can help you improve your ranking on search engines so that you can be one of the first search result pages. Meaning more people, even potential new clients, can find your business, without scrolling down till the end, or even worse, clicking on the second page of the search engines. I don´t think anybody does this anymore if they even did this, to begin with…
SEO is especially important for small businesses because it can be a great leveler. Small business owners who focus on SEO can see a significant increase in website traffic in organic search results. This is because SEO helps websites rank higher in search engine results pages, which means that more people will see your site when they conduct a search related to your business. This increased exposure can translate into more customers and revenue for your business.
Advertising vs. SEO
Traditional advertising can be overtime very expensive and difficult to scale. So before you start with advertising, you should nevertheless optimize your page. Even when you don´t want to focus on organic search traffic. Having a good website is always important.
SEO is relatively low-cost and easy to implement. If you do SEO by yourself it can even be almost free. It is a great way to start growing your business. Nonetheless, SEO can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it doesn’t have to be.
There are a few simple things you can do to improve SEO on your website and get better search results. With the right SEO strategy, search engine optimization can be a great way to get ahead of your competition. To understand SEO better we first have to answer the important
question:
How do search engines, like Google rank your website?
Google’s ranking algorithm is a closely guarded secret, but we do know a few things about how it works. The algorithm takes into account a variety of factors. Those factors include the quality and relevance of your content, the number of links from your page and to your page, and the authority of those links.
PageRank
Google also uses something called PageRank to determine a website’s ranking. PageRank measures the importance of your website and its influence on the web. According to Google, PageRank determines the importance of your website by the number and quality of links to a page. With the thought that high-quality websites are getting more links from other websites. So the more high-quality links to your site, the higher you will be on PageRank.
The constant change in algorithms
Google is constantly changing its ranking algorithms, so it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest developments. Same as SEO itself. It is always changing. But if you want to stay ahead of the competition, then SEO is essential and easy to start. So begin optimizing your website today! But how can you enhance your site with SEO?
There are numerous approaches to SEO. Some of the most important and easy things you can do are to pick out the proper keywords and phrases that you want to target and use them throughout your website content.
How to use SEO to target specific keywords and phrases
Keywords are the most important thing when it comes to finding your website on search engines. When someone is searching for something on a search engine, like Google, they use certain words related to what they want to find. Otherwise, how should the search engine know what you are looking for?
For example, if you want to search for a hotel you would simply put the keyword “hotel” in the search bar. Or if you want it a bit more specific, you may search for the keyword combinations like “Hotel nearby” or “Hotel in Brasil” depending on what you want. No matter if it’s just one word, a word combination, or even a whole question, like “What is the best hotel in Brasil?”. Those words are considered keywords.
So if you want your website to be found, targeting the right keywords and search queries (keywords combinations, like questions) is essential. If you use keywords on your website, the search console is more likely to show your site.
The search algorithms think your website is of value for the keywords, that the person is searching for at that moment because they find those exact keywords on your site. So to get more visitors to your page use keywords. To use keywords in the right way, you first need to perform keyword research.
What is keyword research?
For SEO you have to be familiar with your audience. The most important thing is, that you have to understand what they’re searching for online and how they do it. To understand your audience, you need to know what keywords they’re using and what questions they are typing in the search bar to find what they are looking for. Keyword research is the process of finding out which keywords and phrases are being used most frequently by your target audience. So that you choose the right keywords for your site.
How do I do research?
It’s important to consider how people will be searching for information online. For example, if you own a plumbing business, you wouldn’t target the keyword “plumbing” because very few people will search for that term online.
In this case, it may be smarter to use a few words together. You could target keywords such as “emergency plumbing services” or “plumbing repairs”. These keywords are more specific and are more likely to be used by people who are looking for information about plumbing services.
In the process of keyword research, you have to ask yourself questions like “Who do I want to address with my business”, and “How old are they?”, to fully understand who you are targeting. Or even the question “where do they live”? There are maybe some regions that are using different terms for some words. Not all think alike.
Picking the right keywords
Picking keywords that your competitors are using is no crime. Your competition has almost the same audience as you have. The emphasis is on “almost”. Remember not everyone is alike. You can also consider seasonal keywords, for instance, around christmas people are searching for “present” or “gift” (depending of course on you are from). So you can use those additional keywords to your advantage.
You don’t need to do the keyword research completely on your own. They are some amazing keyword research tools, we can recommend, that may come in handy.
Helping tools for you to perform keyword research
They are a variety of SEO tools on the internet, which can help you with your research. Including the keyword research tool, from one of the major search engines like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or another tool SEO Moz’s Keyword Explorer. They will help you find ideas for the right keywords, that are fitting your business and keywords that are being used by people who are looking for information online.
Those tools provide you with important information regarding how many people are searching for that keyword and how difficult it may be to rank among the top 10 with that keyword. It even shows the cost per click, meaning the price you have to pay if someone is clicking on your site if you use advertising, and how high the competition is for that.
Relevant keywords only
But don´t forget to make sure that the keywords, you want to target, are relevant to your business and its products or services. Don´t lure people to your website with the wrong keywords. You always want to show relevant results, so that people find your website informative and don´t leave your page quickly.
The goal is that people are long on your website. If they are longer on your site the search engine algorithms are under the impression that your site must be beneficial. That results in your site ranking higher the next time someone is searching for the keywords again.
To get the most out of SEO for your business website, it’s important to use those relevant keywords or relevant queries correctly. You can use these keywords throughout your website content. You should include them in the title tags, meta description tags, and the body of your content. You can also use them in blogs and other online content.
The overuse of keywords
But make sure that you use keywords in a way that sounds natural and doesn’t feel forced. Don´t overdo it. Keep it simple. Nobody wants to read a text about SEO, where every second word is SEO, so you might have a chance to rank with SEO for the word “SEO”, even though ranking for “SEO” is quite hard. Because if you search for SEO on a search engine, the search engine will provide a great number of search results including the word “SEO”. (See what I did there?)
5 Tips for improving SEO in your website content
Several ranking factors go into determining a website’s ranking in SERPs. Some of these ranking factors concentrate on-page optimization. Which includes the site structure, the quality of the content on your website, the number of links in your content, and the images on your site. SEO can help you improve all of these factors so that your website ranks higher in SERPs.
SEO is a complex process. That´s why it´s always good to have some SEO strategies. So here are a few simple things you can do to get your on-page SEO started.
Provide featured snippets and rich snippets
Search engine results pages (SERPs) have long been a staple of SEO. The layout of SERPs, as well as how individual results are displayed, has changed dramatically over the years. Google is always testing new ways to present search results, and small business owners can benefit by understanding these changes.
Featured snippets and rich snippets are two of the most important SERP features for small business owners. Rich snippets allow you to provide more information about your product or service, while featured snippets give you a chance to appear at the top of the page. Featured snippets are those boxes that appear at the top of the search engine page, above the regular search results. As so-called “result zero” or “position zero”. They typically contain a brief excerpt from a website, along with the answer a user has asked.
Since featured snippets are so prominently displayed, your website must be optimized for them. You can do this by making sure your content is concise and relevant, and by using specific keywords and phrases that people are likely to search for. Some typically featured snippets are tables and videos.
You can also use rich snippets to provide more information about your product or service. Rich snippets are found in between the organic search results. All information that is on the rich snippet is pulled directly from the structured data from the website. Typical for rich snippets are articles or carousels, which for example show some recipes.
Always provide high-quality content
As already mentioned several times in this article, creating quality content is one of the most important factors for SEO. If not even the most important. Make sure you write informative and engaging content that is relevant to your target audience. So that if they click on your page they stay on there. Remember that’s the goal.
Your HTML code is also very important for search engine marketing. It’s essential to have meta tags for your site. If you don´t have it, it may be difficult for search engines to know what exactly your page is about.
Changing the HTML code is easy. It does not require a lot of knowledge to do so. While you change your code, make sure to write a title tag that is attention-grabbing and descriptive. As well as a meta description and will convince people to click through to your page. But again remember people just want relevant results, don´t lead them astray.
Do not forget the link-building
As already mentioned links are an important factor in how Google ranks your websites. Link building is a great way to get your SEO strategy started and boost your organic search results. There are two kinds of links on your website: internal links and external links.
internal linking
Internal links are there, to link to other sites on your website from within your content. A good example to use internal links is in a blog post, to refer your reader to another blog post from you. It is important to have an internal link structure. It helps the reader to navigate your website. This also helps Google and other search engines, crawl and index your pages. Those so-called bots are responsible that your website finding its way into the search engine results. So make it easier for them.
External linking
Then there are external links. Which directs readers to a particular page that does not include the domain from your site. Maybe you want to offer the reader more information that is not on your site or just wants to point out a great website that your reader should check out.
External links are one of the most important ranking sources. The optimization of external links counts as off-page SEO. Those links are considered by search engines as third-party votes from other websites for your site. PageRank will see those links and evaluate your site of importance and rank it higher.
Internal linking and external links are easy and also effective ways to improve your SEO, without much effort.
Images for your websites
Images are important for SEO because they help break up the text on your page and make it more readable. They also help improve the user experience on your website, as people are more likely to stay on a page that has interesting images. No one wants to see a bunch of text when they are opening a site. People staying longer on your site results in a higher ranking from search engines.
Also, make sure to use titles and descriptions for your picture and be precise. If the image doesn´t load people can still roughly guess what it´s about. Another reason to use titles and descriptions for your picture, is, for example, Google bots can not see the content as readers can, therefore those bots can not give information about the picture to the search engine back. Help search engines understand what the picture is about and show them if the image is of relevance or not.
Another factor is the size of the image. Bigger pictures may take some time to load, which results in a bad reader experience. Nobody likes to wait, especially in this modern, time where search engines provide you with thousands of web pages in under a second. If your site takes too long to load people will click away. Which is a bad sign for search engines. They might believe that the content on your site is misleading or is lacking information regarding the keywords.
To get the most out of SEO for your small business website, be sure to use high-quality images of the right size. If you want to make images smaller but are afraid that the quality is getting sloppier, don’t worry. For this, there are some great tools to help you not lose the quality of the pictures you want to use. One such tool, that we can recommend is Optimiziller. It’s a great plugin that helps you make your pictures smaller, without decreasing the quality. This will make your website load faster. That resolves a better user experience.
Other great tools for your SEO success
It is not a shame to rely on tools to help you get the best out of your search engine optimization. Without SEO resources a lot of businesses, no matter if small or big businesses, would be lost. So here are some SEO tools that will help you make the most out of your search engine optimization
As already mentioned there are some great keyword research tools, to help you with your SEO work. Such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner to help find the perfect keywords or search queries for your site. Another tool we can recommend is Ubersuggest. It provides you with statistics such as the search volume, as well as the SEO difficulty and other pages that use the keywords. And it is user-friendly as well.
The major search engine Google also provides tools like, google analytics and Google search console that shows you how your website ranks for certain keywords, index status of pages, crawling errors, and more. To see if your SEO strategies are working out, or if you need to change something, to keep improving.
To keep up with your SEO work and see how effective it is, we at Creative Skyline, recommend the search console RankMath. RankMath is a free SEO plugin for WordPress. It is easy to install and configure. RankMath also provides an AI assistant, which helps you write perfect text, as well as a rank tracker and so much more features. In addition to the free version, there is also a pro version which of course offers much more than the free one. But to start with SEO the free version is completely sufficient.
You can always rely on Creative Skyline for your SEO
When you have your head full with other things but want to give SEO a try, then come to us. We at Creative Skyline are SEO specialists. We take care of your SEO work and help you improve your search rankings. No matter if you are an already fully developed company or small business that just got started, but doesn´t know how to start the search engine optimization. We are here for you.
Creative Skyline knows how search engines work. We do everything from off-page SEO and on-page optimization to page speed optimization and content writing. We help you with your SEO success. So that your website has a chance to rank among the top.
Just contact us and we can speak better about what your page needs to improve.
Conclusion
SEO is an amazing way to improve your organic search traffic on search engines and gain more attention, without paid advertising.
Here are some ranking factors in short again, for you to get started:
Optimizing your website for keywords and phrases that people are likely to search for can increase your chances of appearing at the top of the page. But don´t overdo it.
There are a variety of SEO tools, on the internet, that you can rely on. Tools that help you do keyword research and track your SEO progress. Or even help you with your pictures, to use high-quality pictures, that are fitting to your business. Remember to use titles and descriptions for your pictures.
You can also use rich snippets to provide more knowledge about your product or service. To appear at “position zero” or within the organic search results, with useful information.
Link building is essential for growing a business. Internal linking helps the visitor and bots, to navigate your website better. External linking is receiving links from another side as well as linking to another site, to maybe provide some more information for your reader.
And most importantly, always remember to provide high-quality content, which is relevant to your business and its audience. Use the right text forms on your website. Make sure you improve the title tags, as well as the meta descriptions if necessary, to help search engines classify your page better. To appear on the search engine result pages.
Search engine optimization is a long-term process, which is always changing. This means it may take time before you see your SEO efforts working out. The important thing is to not give up on SEO. Even thou we know it can be tempting, trust me.
Last but not least, if you’re looking to improve SEO on your website and want to help your small business to grow and succeed online but you have no idea how to build a good SEO strategy, Creative Skyline is a great option for you and your business. Just contact us. We´ll be glad to help your business grow.
If you enjoyed this article, you should read our blog, we made it with our hearts ♥ to make things easier.