The Ultimate Guide To SEO

There is an old saying "The best place to hide a dead body, is on the second page of the Google results." While that saying is either true or morbid depending on how you look at it, the statement does hold some element of truth. Most searchers only click on the first link, and most of the remaining click on the second link. In fact, the further your website is down the list, the less and less chance you have to actually get any clicks at all. While all of that may sound daunting, we are here to help guide you through the process, explain what SEO is, and how even a small business can have a good SEO score.

First, let's talk about what SEO is. Search engine optimization is all about optimizing and prioritizing certain aspects of your website, to be more relevant and important to Google when someone makes a search. Search engines like Google look over every single page and piece of text automatically when someone makes a search, attempting to offer the searcher the information they need as quickly as possible. This is why it is so important to adjust every part of your website to be as relevant and detailed about your business, so you come up as high as possible during searches.

But what about more general, competitive keywords, "How do I rank high for that?" I hear you asking. To rank high for those more general keywords, several things need to happen. First and foremost, you need to use keywords (both primary and secondary) that the audience may use to find information. If, for example, I was looking for a place to stay, I may use the primary keywords of "Hotel in (City)". Because I am looking for a hotel in a certain place. Secondary keywords are meant to backup the primary keywords. So instead of simply saying I am looking for a hotel in (city), I could say I am looking for a hotel in (city) with free Wi-Fi and a lunch buffet. This then refines my initial search to help Google find exactly what I want. So, if you are a hotel company that offers all of those things, you would want words like "hotel" "lunch buffet" and "Wi-Fi" included several times throughout your website. You should include those words an appropriate amount of times throughout the website, but should not be used in an annoying or unnatural amount.

Some other things that are worth including in your website to rank high on SEO are appropriate titles and backlinks. One may think that titles and descriptions need to be super long or short to catch the readers attention, or to rank higher. But, to preform the best, the title needs to be right around 50 characters, and the description needs to be right around 150 characters. This gives the reader all the information they need, without being overbearing. In addition, backlinks help assure Google of your credibility. The focus here needs to be on quality over quantity. It is better to have three solid, important backlinks on your website, rather than 30 uninteresting, questionable backlinks. These backlinks not only help boost your credibility, but will also help your SEO score on search engines like Google.

In conclusion, SEO is rather complex, and it would be impossible to go over all of the nuances and factors that go into ranking as high as possible. But, by optimizing your website with good keywords, backlinks, and titles, you can move rapidly up the search results, and into a good position. Still curious about SEO? Click here to learn more.