Affordable Search Engine Optimization
What you will learn from this SEO beginner guide
Search engine algorithms are constantly being updated, and every year it becomes more and more difficult to get to the top of the search results and keep your positions there. And many of the cheap and easy ways to increase your rankings have become extremely risky and are threatened with sanctions from the search engines.
So what Affordable Search Engine Optimization works? How does Google determine which pages to return in response to what people are looking for? How do you get all this valuable traffic to your site?
Google's algorithm
Google's algorithm is extremely complex, and here are the basic principles that guide it when ranking sites:
Google searches for pages that contain high-quality and up-to-date information about the user's request.
It determines relevance by “scanning” your site's content and evaluating (using algorithms) whether that content matches what the user is looking for, usually based on the keywords in the content.
Google determines the "quality" of a site in various ways, but it remains important to the number and quality of other websites that link to your page and to your site in general.
Google's algorithm also evaluates additional elements to determine where your site will rank, for example:
- How do people interact with your site (do they find the information they want and stay on the site, or return to the search page and follow another link? Or are they just ignoring you in search results?)
- Your website loading speed and mobile friendliness
- How much unique content you have (versus low value or duplicate content)
Google's algorithm takes into account hundreds of ranking factors in response to search queries, and they are constantly updating and improving their process.
Search and distribution of keywords
The first step in search engine optimization is to correctly determine what you are actually optimizing it for. This means identifying the queries that people are looking for or the keywords for which you want your site to rank in search engines.
Sounds simple enough, right? I want my company to show up when people search for "dvrs" and perhaps when they type in "buy dvr".
But in reality, not everything is as simple as it seems. When determining the keywords for which you want to promote your site, there are several key factors to consider:
Search volume. The first factor to consider is the number of people (if any) who are searching for a given keyword. The more people search for a keyword, the wider the audience you want to reach. Conversely, if no one searches by keyword, then there is no audience to find your content using search.
Relevance. If a certain product or service is often searched for, that's great. But what if this query isn't entirely relevant to your potential customers?
At first, the relevance seems obvious: if you're selling enterprise email marketing automation software, you don't want to show up for searches that have nothing to do with your business, such as "pet supplies." But, besides this, you should consider for which companies you sell your goods, in what territory and other equally important factors.
Competition
In SEO, you also have to consider the potential costs and the likelihood of success. For SEO, this means understanding the relative competition (and likelihood of ranking) for specific terms.
First, you need to understand who your potential customers are and what they are most likely to look for. If you don't already understand who your audience is, think about it. This is a good start not only for SEO, but for the business in general.
To better understand your audience, ask a few questions:
- What are they interested in?
- What are their problems?
- What language do they use to describe needs, to enter a request?
- Who else do they buy things or services from?
(These could be your competitors. But, in addition, the answer to this question can provide indirect clues in determining your target audience).
After you answer these questions, you will have an initial "initial list" of possible keywords and domains. This list will help you get additional key variations, search volume, and competition metrics.
Take a list of the top keywords your prospects and customers use to describe what you do and start typing them into your Keyword Tools.