Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy to increase traffic to your website. What is the first place on the internet where you look for information? For most people that is Google. Of all the online traffic, 93% start using a search engine, 73% use Google.
Even though your site is so beautifully designed and your site contains great content, you will never reach your maximum potential if your website cannot be found. You can refer to this Licreativetechnologies to know more tricks and tips to boost your site ranking in google.
The functioning of search engines
The basic principle of a search engine is simple: A user enters a search query and search engines return results. Search engines have robots that scour the internet (crawlers). These ‘crawlers’ store information from websites in a database so that they can be accessed quickly later.
This process is called indexing. From there, smaller databases are set up and websites with similar topics (or keywords) are grouped.
Search engines use algorithms to determine the rank of your page. Your rank is determined based on relevance and popularity. 75% of Google users never look beyond the first page of results. The key question is, therefore; How do I get my website on the first page of Google?
Keywords, or actually wishes of your visitors
Keywords are terms or phrases that a Google user searches on. When your company sells t-shirts, the keyword ‘t-shirt’ is obvious, right? Unfortunately, the t-shirt is a generic word and it is almost impossible to reach the first page of Google with generic keywords.
The chance is greater than you will be findable with more specific keywords such as ‘Red XL Puma t-shirt’. Of course, specific questions are searched for less, but the realization of specific wishes leads to higher conversion because the user has already had his or her orientation.
Finding out what the right keywords are for you is a strategic process in marketing. To begin that process, you must first find out what the needs of your target audience are and what words and phrases they use to find a solution. This is, of course, a lot of work, but luckily there are keyword tools to support you in this.
Then it is important to find out what the competition is for your chosen keywords to be able to estimate how much effort it will take to score high. It is important to understand how much effort it takes to get a high position on Google.
Sometimes it is more interesting to start with advertisements instead of organic findability (SEO) because advertisements ensure conversion quickly.
When you have your keywords, they must be used naturally and strategically by the page and content. Keywords must be used at least at the beginning of a title tag, at the beginning of the page, a number of times in the text, once in the alt text of an image, once in the URL and once in the meta description.
Give your visitors what they need
When your page is indexed, it will be displayed in the search results. When a user visits your page and immediately returns to the search results, this is seen as a ‘bounce’. This means that the visitor was not satisfied or was not looking for the content that you presented him. If many visitors ‘bounce’, this will affect your position in Google.
So it is important to think of your end-user for your SEO. Make sure your website is user-friendly and the content relevant. Google’s mission is to lead users to valuable content. Is your content valuable to many users?
Then Google sees this as a valuable site. Of course, this does not mean that you do not have to use keywords. Your website must consist of natural keywords in relevant and up-to-date content. Useful information is shared and that is the ultimatum.
Sharing is caring
One of the most important factors of SEO is inbound links. Incoming links are hyperlinks from other pages to your page. For example, I have referred the above to an explanation of inbound links because I trust the information from Moz.com and find the information valuable.
Incoming links provide page authority. Search engines measure your page authority by looking at the number of qualitative links from other pages. The quality of the domain on which your link is located and the relevance of the link to your page are much more important than the number of links to your website.
The purpose of link building (providing more incoming links to your website) is to get links from sites that are also reliable and authoritarian, so you ensure that your page is also viewed as reliable and authoritarian.
Measuring is knowing
It is important to know how much influence your SEO measures have. There are various tools to keep track of your rank, conversion ratios and bounce ratios. Our favorite: Google Analytics. Dynamically change and analyze your SEO for the best results.
It is important to know that the search engine algorithm is constantly changing. It may be that measures in the past can work against you in the future. For this reason, it is important, just like Google, to always look from the point of view of your customer. This way you ensure a sustainable SEO strategy.