This is an SEO guide for Beginners:

You have probably heard of Search Engine Optimization, or in simple words, SEO. But what is SEO and why does your business need it?

Simply put, SEO is the organic (non-paid) process of ensuring your website’s visibility on search engine results pages. The goal of SEO is to rank higher in search engines when users search for keywords that best relate to your content.

The world of SEO is complex. Nevertheless, you don’t need to be an SEO guru to convince search engines that your website deserves one of the top spots.

Below you will find 8 simple and easy to implement SEO tips to get you started:

1. SEO & User Experience: There are many SEO benefits for providing the best possible user experience.  Building a strong site architecture and providing clear navigation will help search engines index your site quickly and easily. Our basic tips:

  • Provide high-quality, authentic content. Use keywords and phrases people may use to find your content. Make sure your pages are unique. If the majority of content is similar to another page of your website, it can be considered as duplicated content and thus harm performance.
  • Clear and easy-to-use navigation.
  • High page loading time: How quickly your webpages load is increasingly becoming a differentiator for search engines.
  • Responsive design – compatibility.
     

2. Page Titles: Page titles are a very important aspect of SEO. Here are the basic tips:

  • Each page needs to have a unique page title that accurately describes the page’s content.
  • Be brief, accurate and descriptive.
  • Help the user understand what the page is about.
     

3. Meta descriptions: The meta description is a short text that appears under your page’s URL in the search results. Having a meta description won’t necessarily improve your ranking, but it is something you should definitely use before publishing an article, as it can increase your chances of a searcher clicking on your result. Make sure this text is relevant to your title and the content of the webpage.

4. Internal linking: When we talk about internal links we mean links on a page that point to other pages within your website. Link related articles together either by using keyword anchor text or by using the full article title. Provide your audience with further reading options, reducing high bounce rates.

5. URL Format: Our basic tips for great URLs:

  • Make URLs simple and easy to understand for search engines and users.
  • Use hyphens ‘–‘, to separate the words that make up a URL.
  • Avoid lengthy URLs with unnecessary information.
  • Use words that describe what the page is about, but avoid keyword stuffing.
     

Example of Bad URL: http://www.example.com/id=7&sort=A&action=70
Example of Good URL: http://www.example.com/5-basic-tips-for-SEO-beginners

6. Local SEO: Connecting your business to Google’s social media could only help your website's visibility. Register your website with Google My Business and Google+, and ensure that all of your information is accurate and up-to-date, such as opening times, contact information, and reviews.

7. Images Optimization:

  • People tend to forget to add a description (alternative text) when they upload images to their content, but this is totally something to consider as Google tends to “read” images. By adding a description to your images, chances are that they will appear in the Google Image Search.
  • Add keywords to your filename. Avoid names such as image1.jpg etc.
  • Optimize the image size: the smaller the size, the faster the page will load. There are many tools where you can reduce your images’ size without losing the quality.
     

8. Social Media: This is an obvious way to increase your website’s visibility through non-SEO techniques. Make sure you are present on all relevant social media platforms and interacting with your audience.

Obviously, there are far more valuable tips to improve your website’s visibility on search engine results pages, however these are some simple basic SEO steps to get you started.

Our Bonus Tip: Start by improving your website’s user experience. Need some advice? Contact eproductions