Seo is known as “Search Engine Optimization”. It is a term used for keywords being typed into a search engine such as Google or Bing and ranking according to the Search Engines Algorithm. How do you know what terms you want your website to rank for?

Keyword Research

The most important part of Digital Marketing is Keyword Research. Knowing which keywords you want to spend your time and resources ranking for is vitally important to your SEO cause. Essentially everything you do on the internet is based around a keyword. So do your homework and find which keywords you want to rank for and how competitive they are mean a big deal throughout your SEO/Digital Marketing journey.

There are a lot of tools you can use to do Keyword research such as Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

On-Page Optimization

Optimizing your website for quality on-page SEO refers to items on your website that you can optimize in order to receive better search rankings. There are five main categories that your on-page optimization falls into Technical Optimization, Content, Meta Tags, Internal Linking and Design.

Technical Optimization

For technical optimization in plain terms not to get too techy – think about website load time. How fast or slow your website loads does determine whether or not your website will rank to search engines. Think of slow websites as having a bad click-through rate, and most likely no dwell time. The faster your website loads, the better experience for the user, and the longer the amount of time they will spend on your site. You have to get them through the door in order to be interested in your page! They won’t make it through the door if there is a sloth in front of them, they will hit the X quickly and you can kiss that lead goodbye!

When it comes to content optimization think of headings, text, images, and videos for this optimization technique. They all play an important role when it comes to search engine optimization.

With the use of text optimization, we are no longer in a world where you can optimize your post for one keyword. Search Engines in today’s world want to see that you know your stuff about the topic that you are writing about so your text needs to be filled with different variations of your keyword ‘keyword clusters’ in order to make sure that you can rank your website for one of those clusters.

Headings

Headings such as H1-H4 tags need to be optimized. You should only use one H1 tag throughout your post and break down the rest of your post into a list or paragraph form.

Images

Images are so important in your on-page SEO optimization. This includes regular images and infographics as well. Not only do you need them in your text, but you also need to make sure that they have alt tags and captions that are relevant to the topic of your post. Also, make sure your images are optimized. Having images with large file sizes can slow down your website immensely and that can mean bad things for your rankings.

Video

Adding video to your website can do wonders for page view time. You need to make sure that your video can be viewed by visitors and you also need to make sure there is a description of the video. Adding subtitles or closed captions to your video ensures that people without audio can still learn something from your video and will continue to watch it without sound.

Meta Tags

What are Meta Tags? They are snippets of text that are not actually on your website but in your source code that describes the content of your website to let search engines know what your website page or post is all about. You no longer have to be a coder to change the meta title and meta description of your website. If you have a WordPress site using a free tool like Yoast SEO allows you to optimize your website for a keyword and change the Title and Meta-description. Why are Meta Tags important? The Meta Title can be used by search engines to determine to rank. Meta Descriptions can determine click-through rates. If you have a meta description that is uninteresting to a reader, the chances of them clicking on your page are probably not that great. You should write your meta description like you were wiring an ad for that page. It needs to be made as such to gain interest in the viewer so they click on the page to view your website.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is major when it comes to on-page SEO – you want to spread the link juice of two to three pages on your website that have the keyword you are optimizing for on this page. This is also where a good sitemap comes into play Letting search engines know which pages are related. Not sure how to create a sitemap? If you use the Yoast SEO plugin it creates a sitemap for you.

Design

As a Digital Marketer, I can’t tell you enough how important your website design is. Gone are the days where you can just make something look aesthetically pleasing on your PC. Now you have to make sure you have a modern/responsive design that is mobile-friendly. If your website doesn’t fit mobile and tablet versions, not only are you going to have a bad click-through rate, but search engines such as Google are going to penalize you for it as well.

Your overall design needs to be user-friendly, and structurally sound- allowing users to go on an informational journey that is useful to them with a proper call to action in place allowing the user to interact with your website, not only increasing click-through rate and page dwell time but potentially becoming a leader as well.

Domain Authority

“Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.” Moz

When you first purchase a Domain you start out at 0 and when you create more content that is useful to the user and getting noticed by search engines and other users, you then gain more Domain Authority. On average a website that has been around for a few years has a domain authority between 30-40.

Backlinks

There is a lot of controversy in the SEO world that says that you can’t rank your website without backlinks and we’re here to tell you that is not the case. Search Engines want to see good quality content out there that is helpful to the user. If you can provide that amazing optimized content, then the search engines will reward you with the ranking for that keyword. You could say that when you write this amazing piece of content you don’t need to beg for backlinks, but rather people will link to your page organically because the content is so great.

Final Thoughts

So you can see that Search Engine Optimization is a useful tactic in the Digital Marketing world, but did you know that SEO can be also used on a Local level, Local SEO,  making it an easier market to compete in? Want to learn more about Local SEO? Check out our Ultimate Local SEO Guide for Attorneys where you can a more in-depth explanation of Local SEO for any type of business whether you are located in Covington, Destin, or any other place in the world!

When you add in all of the elements to the front end and back end of your content you can really change the game and improve your search engine rankings. Utilizing SEO to gain organic traffic instead of paid with a little hard work and dedication. If you need a professional SEO nerd to help you capitalize on your organic potential look no further than Twinning Pros. We are here to help you get the rankings you deserve.

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