Here is a quick guide to SEO from Growth Cowboys. Before throwing a bunch of technical jargon at you about backlinks, on page optimization, and ranking algorithms this guide tries to introduce SEO to you in terms of your business needs and your customer's experience. This approach provides a blend of theory and application to help you get started on your SEO journey.
Why Isn't Anyone Coming To Your Website?
A good business website is not meant to take up space. It's supposed to attract visitors and more importantly, convert visitors. After you have put the time and effort into designing your shiny new website, you might feel disappointed. After all, all the experts assured you that a website is the foundation of successful digital marketing. To understand why this is the case you need to build a model of the behavior of the average internet browser. Let's start by looking at the most visited sites on the internet.
What Do You Notice About The Top Sites?
They are all sites where the content is dynamically produced either by user uploads or web crawlers. The top one is Google, leading to the topic of this blog. People spend the majority of their time on the internet on user-generated content platforms or search engines. Understanding how these platforms work, how to be visible on them, and how to attract clicks from them is the key to attracting visitors. These sites show users content based on two main factors, search terms and algorithms. Content is filtered by the search term and then ranked by the algorithms. Obviously, for this guide, we are focusing on search engines. If you want to attract visitors using social media, the same principles apply.
How Do Search Engines Work?
Search Engines work by performing three functions.
1. Crawling
Search engines have programs called "robots" that search the Internet for websites. These searches are conducted by having the "robots" "crawl" through websites looking for links. When links are found on a new page, the link is followed, and the "robot" crawls that website for links. This process is repeated until the "robot" can no longer find links.
2. Indexing
After a search engine finds websites, it organizes them and stores them in a database. Once this happens, the websites begin to appear in search results.
3. Ranking
Finally, the search engine employs an algorithm that provides "the best" content for the user's search terms.
Have Search Engines Indexed Your Website?
This may seem obvious, but it frustrates many people trying to get started with SEO. Search Engines can't rank you in their searches if they can't find your website or its pages. The first step to optimize your website for search engines is to check which pages, if any, have been indexed by search engines. You can do this by searching site:yourdomain.com in Google. You can view an example below.
What Should You Do If Google Hasn't Indexed My Site?
If Google hasn't indexed any of your pages, you are facing one of two problems. Either the web crawlers haven't had the chance to index your website's pages, or they cannot crawl your website's pages. Luckily, Google provides the Google Search Console tool to help you deal with this problem. Follow the instructions to verify your ownership of the domain and its associated pages. Once you verify ownership, you'll see a page like this.
Look at the left navigation bar, you'll see a link called "pages". This link will take you to a page that will display the pages on your site that can't be indexed and why. Take the time to fix the errors on those pages and then you can resubmit them for indexing.
To submit a page on your website for indexing, look at the search bar at the top of the page. It should contain a placeholder that reads "Inspect any URL in "yourdomain.com". If you want a page indexed you can ask Google to inspect it by typing the URL into the search bar. Let's look at an example for "https://www.growthcowboys.com/", our home page.
If your page isn't on Google, you'll have the option to request expedited indexing. If Google can crawl your page, it should be indexed and start showing up in search results shortly. After you click the button, you should see a page like this.
Repeat this process for all the pages on your website that you want to be indexed. To help Google index your website easier in the future, you should create a sitemap and let Google know where to find it. A sitemap is an XML file that contains all the URLs on your website that you want indexed. There is a link in the left navigation bar that lets you do this.
How Do I Improve My Rankings?
Now that Google is indexing your site, your primary concern should be improving your ranking for your keywords. Keywords are the search terms you want to rank for. They are what internet surfers whose eyeballs you want to capture are searching for. If you are a dentist, this might mean things like toothache, abscess tooth, cavities, or gingivitis. If you are a shoe store this may mean terms like shoe sales, shoe stores in my area, fashionable shoes, or Nike shoes. Remember Google tries to rank the page with the information most relevant to user searches highest. For that reason, the first order of business is performing on-site optimization for your pages. On-site optimization is about ensuring the content on your pages provides suitable answers for the terms your target audience searches for. You can optimize a page for one keyword or multiple keywords.
On-Site Optimization Checklist
After you have identified the keywords that you want the specific page you are optimizing to rank for, you need to optimize the content on that page to rank for that keyword. It is important to note that while optimizing for specific keywords involves ensuring they are included in the page's content, it does not mean that excessive use of a keyword helps a page rank for the keyword. Using a keyword excessively is known as keyword stuffing, and it is penalized by Google. Instead, create content that allows you to organically include the keywords you want to rank for. There are several parts of a webpage, where search engines focus their keyword search. This checklist provides a list of places, where you should optimize your content for your keywords.
Identify Keywords
The process of identifying keywords is called keyword research. We have developed a spreadsheet template that helps you organize this process. Feel free to make a copy of the spreadsheet to do keyword research for your website. To use the template, list all your keywords and determine their search volume, keyword difficulty, and intent. You can find the value of the first two attributes using this free keyword tool. You calculate the priority by dividing search volume by keyword difficulty.
It is important to remember that intent is king when deciding content relevance. When you are optimizing your content the target audience is the human, not the search engine's webcrawlers. If your content has a high ranking but a high bounce-rate, you'll be penalized. You need to keep in mind the intent of the keyword. Intent can generally be broken down into four categories, transactional, informational, commercial, and navigational.
Transactional keywords are used when a user is looking to make a purchase. Navigational keywords are used when the user is trying to locate a specific website or a specific page on a site. Commercial keywords are used when a B2B buyer is looking to build a relationship with a supplier. Finally informational keywords are used when a user is looking for information about a topic.
Keyword Research is "complete" when you have identified all the keywords you want to rank for. This may seem like an easy enough task, but it is difficult to exhaust all the possible options. A website could have hundreds if not thousands of keywords to rank for across hundreds or thousands of pages. If you are a dentist's office with a blog, the list of keywords you want to rank for could contain all the diseases of the mouth. You are never really done with keyword research as most of the keywords people search for are long-tail keywords.
The Importance Of The Long Tail
The obvious keywords are extremely valuable, but they have a downside. They are difficult to rank for because there is so much competition. The following chart explains the trade-off between search volume and discoverability/keyword difficulty.
The one-word long keywords, referred to as head keywords, are not numerous but have massive search volumes. At the other end of the spectrum, we have many-word long keywords that make up the majority of search terms but have lower search volumes. It may seem like long-tail keywords are not valuable because they are so infrequently searched for. The benefit of optimizing for these keywords comes from the compounding clicks to your site when you rank for a large amount of them. When you make high-quality content meant to rank for long-tail keywords, it boosts your domain authority. Over time the increased domain authority increases your rankings for the extremely valuable head terms. Another benefit of long-tail keywords is they carry the strongest intent.
shoes
vs
red shoes big & tall near me on sale
Which of those searches seems more likely to lead to a sale to you? The first search term could be someone browsing for shoes or researching the subject. The second one has a clearer intent to buy. As we mentioned earlier, conversion is the end goal of attracting visitors to your site. The stronger the intent, the likelier the user is to convert.
If you would like a more in-depth tutorial on keyword research, you can follow along with our blog post on keyword research.
Optimizing URL and Title Tag
The URLs on your website need to be human-readable. Look at the following URL for a blog post on a random website.
https://www.example.com/blog/4ha7ghkj89389
This is not a good URL. If you use unique identifiers for resources on your website, they should ber slugs instead of arbitrary letters and numbers. The URL below is more appealing to website visitors and search engines.
https://www.example.com/blog/ten-tips-to-improve-search-rankings
This is a quick and easy way to improve on-site seo.
It is also important that the title tag in your page's head tag reflects the optimized URL. The page title is visible in the tab of your web browser. You can edit the title tag using this syntax.
<head>
**random tags**
<title>Your Page Title</title>
**random tags**
</head>
Your content management system should allow you to update the title tag.
Optimizing SEO Meta Tags
Website pages have meta tags located in their head tag that contain metadata about the page. This metadata is read by search engines and social media sites. Optimizing your metadata makes it easier for search engines and social media to display your page. Look below to see an example of how search engines process meta tags.
-
Meta Description Tag
This meta tag determines what the internet surfer will see in your page's description as in search results. You want your description to catch their attention and speak to their intent. A website with well-optimized meta description tags will do the following.
- Provide a unique description for each page
- Keep the descriptions under 160 characters
- Avoid generic descriptions
- Match search intent
- Make sure descriptions are relevant and not clickbait
- Summarize content accurately
You can edit or add a description tag using this syntax.
<meta name="description" content="Your description goes here.">
-
Meta Robots Tag
The robots meta tags tell search engines if they should index and crawl the page. You probably don't want the search engine to index your admin pages. Those pages should be kept hidden, and only accessible by staff. The robots tag accepts the following values.
- index Tells the search engine to index your site
- noindex Tells the search engine not to index your site
- follow Tells the search engine to crawl the page for links
- nofollow Tells search engines not to crawl the page for links
You can use the following syntax to add or update your robots tag. Any one of the combinations below will work. Choose the one that is right for each page you optimize.
<meta name=”robots” content="noindex, nofollow">
<meta name=”robots” content="index, follow">
<meta name=”robots” content="noindex, follow">
<meta name=”robots” content="index, nofollow">
-
Meta Open Graph Tags
Open graph tags are used to make pages easier to share on social media sites. If you produce high-quality content, it will be spread on social media. The open graph tags are designed to let social media sites know how to display your content. You can find an example of the appropriate syntax below.
<meta property="og:title" content="Title of Blog Post" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://www.example.com/path/to/resource" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/images/blogpostbanner.jpg" />
These tags are agnostic about the social media sites they are used on. You can see an example of these tags by looking at the following Twitter post.
Depending on the type of content you are displaying you might need extra tags. This example uses an article as the type, but you can display videos, audio files, and more. Take advantage of this free resource if you want to explore your options.
To take full advantage of these meta tags, you should include share buttons on pages with high-quality content.
Optimize H1 Tag
You may have noticed that the title of this blog post, is the largest and most prominent piece of text. This is because it is inside of a h1 tag. Search Engines use the primary heading to get an idea of what the page is about. You can optimize it by doing the following.
- Make It Short And Concise
- Match User Intent
- Include The Primary Keyword
You can update or add it using this syntax.
<h1>Most Important Part Of The Page</h1>
Optimize HTML Page Body Content
When optimizing your page content, remember that content is king. Most of the optimizations we have presented so far are side dishes. High-quality, relevant content is the entree, the most important part of your strategy. If you provide your users with intent-matched content, you'll be rewarded by repeat visits and shared content. Good content checks off the following boxes.
- Include Relevant Keywords and Their Synonyms Without Keyword Stuffing
- Make Sure Your Content Matches Intent
- Use Headings and Subheadings To Structure The Page
- Include Non-Text Media Like Images, Videos, and GIFs
- Fix Spelling and Grammatical Errors
- Answer Relevant Questions
- Include Power Calls To Actions To Convert User
- Link To Other Areas Of Your Site
Optimize Subheading Header Tags
While the h1 tag denotes the most important part of the page, other headers of less importance give structure to the page. Dividing your page into sections labeled by these headers makes it easier for human beings to navigate and websites that users enjoy are rewarded by the search engine.
- Make It Short And Concise
- Match User Intent
- Include Relevant Keywords
You can add or edit these tags using this syntax.
<h1>Most Important Part Of The Page</h1>
**content**
<h2>Second Most Important Parts Of The Page</h2>
**content**
<h3>Third Most Important Parts Of The Page</h3>
**content**
<h4>Fourth Most Important Parts Of The Page</h4>
**content**
<h5>Fifth Most Important Parts Of The Page</h5>
**content**
<h6>Sixth Most Important Parts Of The Page</h6>
**content**
Optimize Image Alt Text
Internet surfers don't just search for text. They search for a variety of media that you should also optimize for search engines. A quick and easy way to do this is to add alt text to the images on your website that gives a brief description of the image. Do this for every image on your site, and you'll gain more traffic from image searches.
You edit image alt text using this syntax.
<img alt="" src="https://example.com/path/to/img.PNG" title="Useful information for search engines" />
Optimize For Mobile
The overwhelming majority of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. The smartphone went from a nice to have, to a necessity in a decade. For that reason, you need to design your website to be mobile first. You are penalized by the search engines for having a separate mobile site. You can use this free tool to test if your website is mobile-friendly. Most website design tools like Square Space are mobile-first by default, but if your site does need to be made mobile-friendly, we are happy to help.
Make Sure Your Page Is Indexed
After you optimize your pages, make sure they are indexed. Google schedules crawling periodically, but you can expedite the process by requesting indexing in the google search console. Follow the instructions we laid out earlier in this blog post to speed up indexing.
Optimize Loading Time
Internet surfers are spoiled for choice in the Internet age. Their attention spans are decreasing as they become more immersed in their phones. That is why your web pages must have zero performance issues when loaded by browsers. Your webpage needs to be lightning-fast. You can generally optimize for page load times by doing the following.
- Compress Images
- Use CDNs to deliver static files
- Remove unused JavaScript
- Remove unused CSS
- Use next-gen formats for images and videos
Google provides a free tool to find and fix your performance issues.
Off-Site Optimization
While on-site SEO is important, it can only get you so far. After you have improved the content quality on your pages, you need to do things that start building your website's domain authority. When search engines are ranking pages, they give precedence to popular sites with many daily users. The idea behind this, is those sites have built a reputation for trustworthiness that newer websites haven't. The things you need to do to improve your site's authority happen off your website. Here's a quick rundown of the steps you can take.
-
Guest Posts On Other Websites
This is a great way to build backlinks and attract new visitors. Many sites exist to aggregate information about a certain topic, and they are always looking for new contributors. This tactic has two benefits. It increases your domain authority because Google rewards domains it frequently sees during its crawls and it expands your reach past what it would normally be.
-
Local SEO
Have you ever seen a Google business page? You should make one and claim it if you are a local business. This makes it way easier for people looking for the products and services you sell near you to find you.
-
Social Media Marketing
Building a following on social sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram allows you to gain valuable links. A strong social media presence allows you to share your content with a large number of followers who can boost your content via likes and shares.
There are several other off-page optimizations, but these are the ones we think are most effective. SEO is more time-intensive than paid reach, so you must prioritize strategies. Pick one or two of these to implement over the next few months and you should see an uptick in visits.
We hope this guide helps you take steps to improve your ranking. If you like this article, you should consider signing up for our newsletter to have content like this delivered to your inbox twice a month. If you have more in-depth questions you'd like us to answer, please get in contact with us.