12 Ways To Improve SEO For A Website – SEO Basics For Beginners

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search,video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Excerpt from <https://en.wikipedia.org>

If you want to have organic traffic for your business, then you must learn the basics of SEO. Even if you have people working for you, learning SEO is a must for all business owners in this age of information technology. As search engines, especially Google, changes their “algorithm… businesses must consistently keep up with these changes. Even if you use purely “white hat” SEO, your competitors are out there and you must deal with this changes ethically and strategically.

So let’s get to the most basic concepts of SEO.

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What is SERP?

Short for search engine results page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search engines typically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine’s spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine’s directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.

Excerpt from <http://www.webopedia.com>

How is your website performing in Google searches? Use our Instant Audit Tool to find out:

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What Role Do ‘keywords’ play in SEO?

For search engine optimization (SEO), keywords are the connector, the relationship between you and your prospects, established and indexed by the search engine. Users search on words or phrases, and, if your site is well optimized, your pages turn up in the search results.

The starting point for SEO is having a clear and thorough understanding of which keywords are relevant and will perform for your site.

Common mistakes

The mistakes often made at the start of the SEO process:

– Not thinking broadly enough about which keywords could be effective.

– Selecting keywords that people don’t actually search for.

– Being unaware of which search terms are most popular among customers.

It also is important to remember that the search engines are working on behalf of the end users, not for the Web site owners, and will do everything they can to recognize when they are being sold to. Your content needs to be engaging and relevant in order to guarantee returning relevant traffic.

You can read more from <http://www.accountingweb.com>

How Does Social Media Impact SEO?

• A link that is tweeted many times as opposed to a link that was never tweeted, will have higher visibility in search engines
• Content shared across social media is taken into consideration by search engines as indication of quality information
• Content that has been extensively tweeted about can cut indexation time by 50%, while reducing the time it takes Googlebot to find your content from 2 hours to 2 seconds
• The amount of quality connections, followers, and friends on social media that a user has is also a factor in how content will be ranked
• A factor to consider when thinking of improving your SEO is continuing to use your keywords in the content you’re posting across social media
• Overtime the more content that is shared about your website across social media, the more rankings your website will receive across the major search engines

More details from <http://blog.sumall.com>

What is the importance of quality content?

Google continues to adjust its algorithms to make it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly and Matt Cutts has made it clear that only quality content will be easily discovered via Google search. Bing has also stated that content checks are key for marketers who want to see an increase in rankings on Microsoft’s search engine.

Excerpt from <https://paradisesocial.wordpress.com>

12 Ways To Improve SEO For A Website

Tip #1 – Use WordPress

WordPress, straight out of the box, comes ready to embrace search engines. Its features and functions guide a search engine through the posts, pages, and categories to help the search engine crawl your site and gather the information it needs to include your site within its database.

WordPress comes with several built in search optimization tools, including the ability to use .htaccess to create apparently static URLs called permalinks, blog-rolling, and pinging. There are also a number of third party plugins and hacks which can be used for search engine optimization (SEO).

Excerpt from <http://codex.wordpress.org>

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WordPress Is “A Fantastic Choice”

Matt Cutts praised WordPress for being SEO-friendly platform. WordPress automatically solves a ton of issues bloggers might have. It is a fantastic piece of software, makes your site easily crawlable by search engines, solves some 80-90% of mechanics of SEO and is the first big step anyone can take towards creating a popular online business. Watch the full presentation and see the full list of tips below:

Excerpt from <http://howtomakemyblog.com>

Google’s Matt Cutts discusses ways to manage SEO from within WordPress. Although below video is several years old, 98% of the information in it is still valid. This is a must see for any business or blogger using WordPress to publish content.

Tip #2 – Choose an SEO Friendly WordPress Theme

As a blogger, your two main goals are creating quality content and driving as much organic traffic as you possibly can to your site. As such, you should be careful when choosing your WordPress theme. While WordPress is generally SEO-friendly, few WordPress themes out there are optimized to rank high on search engines. Below are just two top SEO friendly WordPress Themes.

SCHEMA

This theme only got released a few months ago due to the high demand for a modern WordPress theme that is optimized right out the box. And this is where Schema comes in, it has been well accepted within the WP community as one of the best. Schema as also best mentioned in our fastest loading WordPress theme collection that Google has announced in recent years that a site’s speed does contribute to a site ranking signal.

https://mythemeshop.com/themes/schema

SociallyViral

Socially Viral is laid out in a way that increases your readers time on site and page views Created by MythemeShop the guys who created Schema, you get the same attention to detail and built-in SEO options. You might want to consider this not just for its search friendly coding but to help you rank more social shares and traffic. Other noteworthy features of this theme include mega menus, social share buttons, WPSubscribe Pro plugin

https://mythemeshop.com/themes/sociallyviral/

Check out for more SEO themes here https://85ideas.com

Tip # 3 – Do This WordPress SEO Checklist

• Install SEO Plugin. Google Analytics for WordPress and SEO for WordPress, these plugins will make your life 10x easier!
• Install Social Sharing Plugin
• Disallow category and tags pages in robots.txt
• Set Post Name as URL in settings
• In each page or post use proper image with proper alt tags
• Install Analytic plugin and add analytic code
• Verify site with Analytics code for Google webmaster
• Install sitemap.xml and submit in Google webmaster

Tip #4 – On Page SEO

In search engine optimization, on-page optimization refers to factors that have an effect on your Web site or Web page listing in natural search results. These factors are controlled by you or by coding on your page. Examples of on-page optimization include actual HTML code, meta tags, keyword placement and keyword density.

Excerpt from <http://www.webopedia.com>

Here’s a great infographic about On Page SEO from Ben of SimpleContentCreation.com. Ben is passionate about content creation and sharing his experiences, creativity and knowledge to everyone who is interested. Here’s his 10 Easy Steps To Better On Page SEO

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Tip #5 Check Errors That Impacts SEO

Check your Google Webmaster tool for 404 / 500 errors, duplicate content, missing titles and other technical errors that Google has found.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

You can also use BrowSEO to find even more technical errors. The most common detrimental errors people tend to make are 302 redirects that should be 301 redirects. BROWSEO is a web app that allows you to view any webpage without distractions caused by styles. It also highlights parts of a page that are relevant for SEO.

http://www.browseo.net

Use Screaming Frog to find broken links, errors, and crawl problems.

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider

Tip # 6 Do Keyword Research Properly

Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search. Search engine optimization professionals research keywords in order to achieve better rankings in search engines. Once a niche keyword is found, it is expanded upon to find similar keywords. The process is usually aided by keyword suggestion tools, like the Google Adwords Keyword Planner, which offer thesaurus and alternate keyword suggestion functionality. Most of the time the various search engines provide their own keyword suggestion tools as well which also include the number of searches made for each of those keywords. This information is then used in order to select the correct keyword depending on the SEO goals of the website.

Excerpt from <https://en.wikipedia.org>

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The ideal keywords you need to target are those that have high monthly search and relatively easy competing websites to outrank. This is a complicated topic but good thing there are keyword research tools that can help you out.

• WordStream’s Keyword Tool (free) http://www.wordstream.com/keywords
• FreshKey ($20 software) http://freshkey.com
• Soovle (free) http://soovle.com – This site is cool. Soovle let you explore the most searched keywords on different search engines based on the keyword root you give it
• Ubersuggest (free) http://ubersuggest.org With this free keyword tool you can instantly get thousands of keyword ideas from real user queries! Use the keywords to get inspiration for your next blog post, or to optimize your PPC campaigns
• Google Keyword Planner (free) – https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner This shouldn’t be a surprise. You need to have an Adwords account. You can use the tool for free.
• Market Samurai (30 day free trial) – http://www.noblesamurai.com/dojo/marketsamurai this is my favourite keyword research tool because of its many functionalities. I no longer need to use multiple tools and use MS Excel to manipulate the data to fit my purpose.

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Tip # 7 Know Your Enemy

Check your competitor link profiles. Once you know where their backlinks are coming from and what anchor text they are using, you can imitate and improve. You can use the following site to do your competitor analysis:

• Ahrefs
• Link Diagnosis
• Open Site Explorer
• Majestic SEO .

How is your website ranking in Google for searches? Get an instant website audit by using our tool:

[button size=”big” text=”FREE INSTANT Website Auditor” link=”https://www.ebizuniverse.com/seo-audit-request-form/” color=”blue”].

Tip # 8 Have At Least a 2000 Word Text In Your Articles

There are a lot of writing services out there that offers 500 word articles for webmasters.  It seems that this is the standard. But analyzing sites on page one of Google, statistics shows that you must have at least 2000 words. Here’s a study from SERPIQ.com

“When it comes to content length, there are a lot of opinions as to what’s considered “good.” While there are no hard rules, it’s generally assumed that more content is better…but is this true? Let’s kick off the post with a graph of the average content length of domains on the first page of the SERPs:

For all of these graphs, our content length data does not include any html, css, or javascript, but it does contain the text found in sidebars, which could inflate the data slightly compared to just looking at the main content area.”

As you can see, there is a drop in content length as we move from first to tenth position. On average, 10th position pages have 400 less words on the page than first position pages. This does point to the trend that higher ranked sites have more content, but keep in mind that this graph is not segmented in any way – this is just a graph of all of the SERPs we’ve analyzed.

Excerpt from <http://blog.serpiq.com>

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Tip # 9 Use LSI In Your Articles

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords are essentially keywords related to the keyword that you search for on search engines such as Google. In a nutshell, they are keywords that are semantically linked to your main keyword. In practical terms, Google has confirmed that by using more LSI keywords, your page will typically rank better. 

Excerpt from <http://lsigraph.com>

http://lsigraph.com

Tip # 10 – Link To Your Internal Pages

When we say internal linking, we are interlinking other contents of our websites with each other. For each of our articles, we must strive to link out to other related contents in our website.

An internal link is a clickable hyperlink which directs the user from one page to another page on the same website.  Below is a video tutorial that explains the process.

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Tip # 11 Do Off-Page Optimization

A good majority of people define Off Page SEO is all about increasing your backlinks, but they are wrong. Off Page SEO is all about branding and increasing your chances of getting backlinks. It is not about increasing backlinks because people can buy backlinks and increase the count, but that is not the optimial way because you will be gaming the system. There is a positive correlation between your site’s popularity and the chances of getting backlinks. But the fact of the matter is that you do not have a popular site when you start.

Excerpt from <http://www.wpbeginner.com> 

Make sure that you claim your business / website name on major networks for reputation management reasons. One reason is to ensure that nobody else gets your account name on these networks. The second and most important reason is for you to have the chance to own all of the results on page one of Google for your business or website. Here are some of the major networks you should be signing up.

• http://www.twitter.com/brand-name
• http://www.facebook.com/brand-name
• http://www.yelp.com/biz/brand-name
• http://www.youtube.com/user/brand-name
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/brand-name
• http://brand-name.wordpress.com
• http://brand-name.tumblr.com
• http://pinterest.com/brand-name
• http://www.hulu.com/profiles/brand-name
• http://technorati.com/people/brand-name
• http://about.me/brand-name
• http://brand-name.posterous.com/
• http://profile.typepad.com/brand-name
• http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/brand-name
• http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/brand-name
• http://www.etsy.com/people/brand-name
• http://en.gravatar.com/brand-name
• http://www.scribd.com/brand-name
• http://brand-name.livejournal.com
• http://brand-name.hubpages.com
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/brand-name
• http://photobucket.com/user/brand-name/profile

And don’t forget about major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+

Tip # 12 Ensure That Your Site Is Mobile Friendly

Google is all about the user, and these day people are more and more browsing through their smart phones. You can use BrowserStack to check your websites mobile friendliness. If you are using WordPress, you can easily browse for Themes that are already built for mobile browsing.

Now it is time to ACT! Find out how your website is doing in searches by our instant audit tool:

FREE INSTANT SEO Audit Of Your Website

Ready to take the next step? If you are, interested in SEO Chicago services, contact us at 847-220-9541 now. We also opened an SEO Dallas operation, so if you’re based in Dallas, Tx Feel free to contact us for a free quote.

Optimizing keywords is probably the most important SEO technique that you need to apply and watch out. Sometimes it can be very difficult for website owners who are not very familiar with the SEO process. Developing content and link building strategies that grow your audience, build your brand, and increase your SEO and revenue is crucial for your business. OutreachMama has the latest info and strategies on how to do this