Much like any new field you may venture into, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can seem overwhelming. There are lots of new SEO terms that you will need to learn and get familiar with.

If you do not have an experienced hand to guide you through the learning process, you may never fully grasp the concept of SEO. This SEO guide is intended to introduce you to your website SEO.

Also, you will find an easy to follow 5-step guide for optimizing your website for search engines. Let’s set the ball rolling with a look into search engines and Google in particular.
How Google Works

Search engines are designed mainly for crawling the web, indexing web content, and returning the same as the results of search queries.

Of all the search engines, Google currently has the largest market share of the search market with 73% (according to net market share). Google is able to maintain this share by delivering quality search results and the sheer size of its database.

If your goal is to gain web traffic from search engines, then your main focus should be on optimizing for Google search. From this point onwards we will cover the 5 steps to follow to optimize your website or blog on Google.

Here are the five steps to optimizing your website for higher search rankings:

Step 1 – Discover Keywords That Are Used by Your Audience

Keywords are search terms that people type into the Google search bar each time they are looking for fresh information from a search engine.

A keyword could contain a single word, double words, or a phrase containing three or more words (also known as long-tail keywords). There are lots of keywords that are unique to particular industries or niches.

For instance, the industry “Digital marketing” will have keywords such as SEO, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and sales funnel. As a business owner, you need to identify the keywords that your target audience is using for searching on Google.

Once you are able to do this, you can create valuable content around the keywords, so they can find you online. There are two ways to follow for finding out these keywords – you do guesswork or keyword research.

The guesswork is a trial-and-error effort that may not produce the kind of results you seek but instead lead to a waste of your time. Keyword research is a better option and for this, you need the right tools to help you with it.

Google Trends is a great tool that shows you keyword trends and how popular they are. However, you don’t get details about the keywords as Google Trends does not provide search volume and other details you need.

Some SEO tools that should help you with the keyword research are Ahrefs and UberSuggest.


Step 2 – Create Content for Your Audience

Content is created with the objective of providing valuable information to those who need them. Your business goal is to create and publish content that is of great value to your target audience.

This means you need to know the questions they are asking and the kind of information that they seek. You can find out what information they need by asking them directly or getting them to take surveys prepared by you.

Also, you can find questions that are related to your business and brand from Question and Answer websites such as Quora. It’s only if your content is relevant to your target audience that you will be able to attract them through search engines.

Step 3 – Craft Compelling Headlines

For SEO to be successful, you’ve got to create content for humans and also for the search engine algorithm. Google algorithm may be able to get your web posts on the first page of SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) but it won’t get you the clicks.

That’s because people must find your titles and headlines compelling enough before they click on them. That’s why you should focus more on your audience when crafting titles and headlines for your content.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for creating compelling titles and headlines, but a few tips to guide you. Create titles that answer the questions that your target audience is asking.

Also, ensure that you include your target keywords in the titles and headlines of your content. Copywriting rules for crafting compelling headlines require that they provide a unique value, and are urgent and ultra-specific.


Step 4 – Optimize Images

Images are content assets that can help improve the visibility of your brand through Google image search. However, to get the needed exposure, you need to optimize your images.

The first thing you need to do is label all images on your site with the appropriate names. If the image is about a brown eagle, then it’s better to label it as brownEagle.jpg. The proper labeling of images helps Google crawler better understand what the image is all about.

Also, to optimize your images, you will need to include alt texts and clear descriptions for all images featured on your site.

Step 5 – Build Authority Backlinks

Backlinks are very important metrics that search engines make use of in order to determine the search ranking of your site or blog. Google looks first at the authority of backlinks to your site before it considers the total value of those backlinks.

This means you have to develop and follow through a backlink building strategy for your site. One of the ways to earn backlinks is through guest blogging on sites that are related to your business or in the same niche.

Also, you can reach out to friends, colleagues and and earn backlinks from them. The most important means of gaining quality backlinks from authority sites is the creation of high-quality content.

If you are able to publish original research or report that is very important to your industry, you will find other sites linking to your content.
Conclusion

Learning and applying SEO techniques may seem like a daunting task for those who are new to it. However, you can make the journey faster by learning from those who have already taken the SEO path ahead of you.

This guide does just that by giving you 5 easy-to-follow steps to optimize your website on Google search.
SOURCE

Cool

Thanks for the tips.