What Are the Basics of Search Engine Optimization?

Among the hundreds of search-ranking factors considered by Google's algorithm, more emphasis needs to be put on:

1. Link building: For years, it has been a top Google ranking factor. To rank in Google's first page, it is important to build your website with high quality backlinks.
2. Fresh Content: If you are consistent in producing fresh content, Google will know that you are active. Fresh content attracts people to your site, and is a hub for your keywords.
3. Headlines and Meta Descriptions: This is the first impression a website makes to a visitor. It is what attracts visitors to click on your site.
4. Mobile experience: Since more than 50% of searches occur on mobile, mobile-first optimization is an important consideration. 

What Are the Fundamental Components of Search Engine Optimization?

Having a right balance of the key SEO elements will help your business score more conversions, clients, and sales. There may be hundreds of important SEO elements, but emphasizing on the top-ranked pieces is necessary. This will propel your business or an organization towards the direction of a strong, and reliable SEO strategy.

1. Keyword Research

As you seek your target audience and the rules of SEO, note that keyword research is important when identifying your audiences' searches, and the best user intent. It should be noted that whatever your audience searches is as important as how they input the keywords. The small shifts in keywords can greatly affect an SEO strategy.

2. The Industry and Audience

The primary industry you wish to target, and it's audience, should be a top option for better success in your SEO strategy. Ask yourself questions that make you reflect about the kind of industry you occupy, competitors you have, and SEO strategies used by them. Understanding the answers behind these questions will help you plan how to properly execute your SEO strategy, and nail down every step.

3. User Intent

A good grasp of the user intent when making searches is important for your SEO keyword campaign to be successful. For example, let's assume that your target audience's primary search point is ‘how to make your own meal.' However, as you compile keyword searches, you discover that ‘DIY breakfast,' ‘quick meals,' and ‘learn how to cook' are among the different keyword variations. Making use of these variations results in a significant increase in searches that lead to your web page.

4. Mobile SEO

Google is shifting its SEO standards, using its mobile-first index to pay more attention to mobile websites. This does not neglect desktop sites; if a desktop site is a query's best search result, its performance will not be hindered. Nevertheless, having mobile SEO refined gives every site owner better chances of landing prospective customers in all versions of their site.

5. Crawling

The process search engine spiders use to discover your site is called Crawling. It is difficult for a search engine spider to crawl your site if the architecture is poorly done, or the internal linking is bad. In addition, having a constant 404 errors on your website can damage Crawling. A 404 error is a response code symbolizing that the server can't find the resource requested.

Some technical implementations can hinder search engine spiders from Crawling your site. SEO pros suggest one obvious solution: removing the ‘Disallow:/' line from robots.txt. This command should not be confused with the ‘Disallow:' directive, which contains a different meaning. The first directive is a server command to disallow site crawling by all search engines, while the second one gives robots complete access.

6. Indexing

Although related to Crawling, Indexing is very different from it. Indexing is the process of organizing data before a search for fast query responses. A search engine cannot read your site if it is not being indexed. Meaning, your web page ranking will not be improved if search engines can't locate and read your site's index. Being a page-level process, pages read by search engines are treated individually.

To know if your page is being indexed by Google, use the ‘site:' operator together with your search. By using this operator with a search domain, for example site: guru-solutions.net, the search engine will display all the pages indexed for that domain. Links for individual pages work too.

Image: An Example of The Operator Search

7. Content

Content remains one of the sure standards used by SEO professionals to boost their rankings, acquire links, and eventually create an income stream via website traffic. If executed poorly, it remains one of the perfect examples of elements that can be the downfall of a site. Content varies; non-spam authoritative content takes preference over spam content. As a rule of thumb, if you are the manual author of your content, you are in a good place.

Nonetheless, content can be a little challenging to get from the start. You can execute every step perfectly only to flop. If every step was followed correctly and professionally, assuming the content is of low quality is not accurate. It is, regardless, important to keep getting the content right no matter the situation. Eventually, everything else will fall into place. 

8. Links

Whether you like it or not, links are a major influence in site rankings. In reference to Google's Webmaster Guidelines, links with spam nature are bad for Google. Do not use links that leave the risk of planting spam footprints on your web page. Ensure that all links come from high quality, and zero-spam sites of a similar audience.

What Are the Different Types of Search Engine Optimization?

As a digital marketing tactic, SEO is among the most effective ways to invest time. For your search strategy to have an all-rounded and organic result, different types of SEO's need to be applied and taken advantage of: on-site SEO, off-site SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO.

1. On-Site/Page SEO.

This is the process of optimizing your website's content using features like headers, Meta descriptions, Meta titles, keywords, images, among others. To excel in On-page SEO, you need to:

• Perform keyword research- Analyze keywords and choose from the ones that fulfill your search engines ranking preferences. Look for keywords that have little competition, but carry high search volumes, and relevance. After choosing your target keywords, optimize your pages headers and content for it.
• Internal linking- any URL that links to another page on your website is an internal link. Attach them to relevant anchored texts, linking to different authoritative pages, to help Google crawl through your site.
•  Optimize metadata- Your page's metadata informs Google about your content. Having your Meta descriptions, and meta titles made relevant to target keywords will boost your ranking potential.

2. Off-Page SEO

The techniques adopted by Off-Page SEO are essential in building your site's relationship and influence with other websites. These include strategies that develop a site's authority and reputation. Search engines view your site as a reliable, trusted, reputable, and an ideal search result if these factors are adhered to. Off-Page SEO heavily relies on link building- the ability of getting reputable sites to link back to yours. Some reputable link building tactics include:

• Competitor research- Study your competitors' backlink profiles, and discover the sources of their links, plus companies that allow hyperlinks.
• Guest posting- Relevant online publications and blogs are willing to publish posts you create. Don't forget to link it back to your company. 

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO represents the non-content elements your website has. The strategies involved in technical SEO includes backend structure improvement, and help in site crawling. Efficiency in technical SEO efforts minimizes any problems with search engines crawling a website. Efforts that need to be addressed include:

• Mobile friendliness- Because of the mass move from desktop to mobile, mobile-friendly sites are more likely to get many visitors.
• Site speed- Use simple templates, optimize visuals, and limit redirects because people prefer a faster website speed.
• Site structure- Ensure consistency in internal linking, URL structure, user-friendliness, and HTTPS hypertext.

4. Local SEO

Local SEO puts its primary focus on a specific area, as compared to a national focus. It boosts your website's online presence around your local community, promoting your services and products. Your profile on Google My Business determines your ranking. The search engine results will be based on the relevance, proximity, and prominence of a search. By meeting various requirements, your business will be selected.

What Tools Do I Need for Search Engine Optimization?

Image: SEO Data Analysis

SEO optimization can be hard to master, especially as an amateur. Luckily, finding an SEO tool that can help you do the job is easy. These tools save you the tedious task of data analysis and keyword research. Moreover, you can track what seems to work, and what needs some adjustments, even on multiple sites. Some of the best tools also offer reports of how you rank compared to your competitors, as well as opportunities you can grab to achieve more. You don't have to use all these tools, you just have to find the one that works best for you.

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most renowned, and recommended SEO keyword tools online. A favorite of experts, Ahrefs is one of the best SEO analysis tools, coming second to Google with the largest web crawlers, and backlink database. This tool can highlight parts of your website that need to be improved for better ranking potential. It also comes in handy when analyzing competitor's backlinks, to help you start up your own brand. Moreover, it can give you a report of your best-ranked pages, check and fix your site's broken links, and find content with the most linkage.

Image: Ahrefs SEO Tool

2. Google Webmaster Tools/ Google Search Console

Previously referred to as Google Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console is a free Google tool used by SEO professionals, website owners, and web developers to better understand their site's performance on the search engine. It is one of the best SEO tools, and a powerful platform that gives a detailed report on the state of your website, reporting website security concerns, mobile optimization errors, and technical issues. The tools available in Google Search Console will provide reports that help measure site performance, traffic, unfixed issues, and also help you perform search results. 

Through understanding the queries that direct users to your website using search analytics, you can optimize your site's impressions, content, position, and clicks. Get a detailed report on Crawling, Indexing, and more information about your page sourced from the Google index. With Google Search Console, you get the added advantage of issue alerts via email anytime Google identifies an issue. Who knows Google better than Google does?

3. SEMRush

Another fan favorite on-page SEO checker dominating the SEO community is SEMRush. SEMRush gives its users the opportunity to identify any changes, assess their rankings, and tap into new ranking chances. A popular feature SEMRush boasts is the Domain Vs Domain option, where a user can make easy comparisons to their competitors. It can also be used to find improvement tips, and monitor your rankings. This is a go-to tool that will give you in-depth insight about your website's traffic, and search data, as well as that of your competitor.

4. SpyFu

If you want a search analysis tool that offers keyword research, domain overviews, pay-per-click research, as well as SEO research, SpyFu is one of the best SEO tools. Having this tool in your arsenal gives you the advantage of searching for domains and finding out everywhere they appear on Google. You will also have access to:

• Every organic rank
• Every Adword bought keywords
• Previous ad variations

Additionally, you will learn the ability to find online leads traditionally via email, address, phone, and social media. The details of this analysis toolsets it apart from the rest.

5. Moz Pro

Moz Pro is a proven all-in-one tool, according to their website, with the right SEO solutions to attain success. It has a number of useful features: rank tracking audits, site audits, backlink analysis, keyword research, site crawling, and more. Moz Pro also has a Chrome SEO feature called the ‘MozBar,' a toolbar that can track SEO insights, track keywords, 24-hour support, and provide one-on-one guidance. 

Image: Moz Pro's Keyword Explorer

6. Schema Markup/ Schema.org

Although last in the list, this is a tool every web owner should be aware of. Schema markup makes use of microdata that can be added to HTML, increasing your site's readability, and improves your Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) presentation. Birthed through a collaboration between Bing, Google, Yahoo!, and Yandex, it was developed to help site owners create content that is understandable to search engines.

For example, using the HTML tag

Orange

signals the browser to show the text ‘Orange' in a heading format. Unfortunately, the tag provides no information about the meaning of the text string; Orange could be a fruit or a color. This hurdle makes it difficult for search engines to return relevant content.

Luckily, you don't need to pick up new coding skills. You only need to add bits of schema markup vocabulary to the site's HTML microdata. Schema data markup is used for different types of data: book reviews, movies, articles, restaurants, events, local businesses, software applications, and TV episodes. In turn, including schema markup in your HTML code reinforces rich snippets, and improves how your page is displayed in SERPs.

Conclusion

To start attracting clients to your website, several SEO strategies need to be executed: link building, mobile experience, user experience, Meta descriptions, fresh content, and headlines, among others. To succeed in SEO, time and patience are required. Some of the fundamental components of Search engine optimization are the industry and Audience, keyword research, mobile SEO, Indexing, Crawling, and links. SEO is categorized into four parts: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, local SEO, and technical SEO. The best SEO tools include Ahrefs, Moz Pro, SEMRush, SpyFu, and Google Search Console.