SEO in a Nutshell

SEO is a very complex content to understand is what most people would say. However, it is much simpler than you think. SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization is the name given to all the activities that attempt to improve your content’s search engine rankings.

All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and so on have a primary search result where each time you search something there’s a list  comes up. The list can go on and on but the first few links actually make it to the top 10 list. So, how is this formed? The ranking is no paid for expect for the ads and it is ranked based on what each of the search engine think is relevant and authoritative. Authority here is measured by the number of links from other pages and this is known as backlinks. So, the more people link to your page to more authority u gain hence Google would think your page is interesting and you can be on top of their list. It’s that simple!

Though search engines like for instance Google rank you based on the authority but it is your job to make your page an authoritative page. How to do this? Simple, just come up with good and credible content to people would find it useful and share in their own pages like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and so on. So, by improving your SEO you can improve your visibility in search engines. This helps you to reach out to more people and builds your brand image and ultimately increase the sales.Okay, now that we know what SEO is let’s look at some of the factors that can affect your SEO ranking. It is impossible to crack the algorithm all these giant search engines sites like Google and Yahoo use to rank the list but by knowing what would get you higher rank you can make your way to the top. The simplest and best way to get your article on to the top is coming up with quality content. Your content drives your traffic. Quality content helps both in attracting the search engines and also building more consumers. The secret to creative attractive contents to both the search engines and your potential customer is to come up with variety types of contents that are not just well written but also something relevant to your audience.

Another factor you should take in note is the ffreshness of the content. There are more than a million articles online of the same topic, so how are you going to make yours  stand out of the rest? The only way to that, is to must make sure your content is fresh and creative. By freshness here, I mean how regularly you post up articles online, consistency matters. Also bear in mind, coming up with new content is good but keeping it fresh matters more therefore always make sure the article is updated and precise and is something relatable to the present time. For example, if your article is about marketing strategy and is written in 2016 most probably it will not work for the time being hence updating it to the current trend would get you more views. It is a very tedious and time-consuming task but it worths the time.

So, now we know the factors that gets you to the top of the list let’s now switch focus to how to make it work. Optimizing SEO can be done in two ways. Firstly, is On-Page SEO. On-Page SEO are those elements that happens within your website which you have control over it. By this it means you can always go back and forth and work on improving it to generate more traffic and sales. Example of On Page SEO are heading and subheading. Heading and subheading provides the consumer with a glimpse of what the article is going to be about and it is also the thing a reader notice. So, if you can keep your heading and subheading interesting yet informative it would really impressed the search engines and also helps your consumer understand the content better. Adding on, another factor that you should consider is internal links. Building internal links or hyperlinks to another content on your page can actually help search engine to learn more about your site.

Another way to optimize SEO is Off-Page SEO. Unlike On-Page SEO you do not have direct control over these Off- Page SEO but there are way where you can get it to work in your favor. One of the of example of Off-Page SEO is trust. Trust is without a question the most important factor to get you on top of search list. Trust is extremely fragile and trust is an important factor especially in Google’s search list ranking. Google determines whether you have a legitimate site that visitors can trust. Best way to improve trust is by building quality backlinks. Speaking of backlinks, it is the most popular Off-Page SEO building factor. But be careful, you do not want to be spamming as that would get you banned from the search engine sites. Instead, start building strong bonds between your reader and customer so that they will link you back in their content.

In conclusion, optimizing SEO is not easy but it is achievable if you put in effort and understand the whole process. However, do bear in mind to not overdo it. For example, over-optimization and excessive use of keywords can led to serious trouble like Google would penalize you for that. Therefore, like I mentioned earlier stick to one or two keywords this helps you to keep your content organized and clear and trouble-free. Also remember, web design is as important as web content. It is only with a good design, search engines can easily scan and browse through to your website. Make it easy to use and make sure it is also unique this can draw lots of attention to your site and attention in marketing is all a good thing.