SEO Foundation Series Part #3:
How to Be Successful at SEO

SEO Foundation Series Part #3:

How to Be Successful at SEO

5 Steps to Be Successful at SEO

SEO gets you found and noticed online. Here’s how to do it right and get more people to visit your website.

In many ways, SEO is still an emerging form of marketing, even though it’s been around for a while. It’s also constantly evolving. Google is always changing and improving its search algorithm. The scope of SEO, and what it takes to really stand out, has grown considerably. Google will recommend sites that it considers to have authority. In other words, Google ranks site that it trusts. So what can you do to get Google to trust you and recommend you first. Here’s 5 steps you can take to be truly successful at SEO.

1. Keyword Research

When people search for anything online they use keywords. It’s pretty simple, really. What you might not realize, though, is that people use a diverse variety of keywords when trying to find the same things. That being said, when people search for your products or services on search engines they might be using keywords and phrases that you aren’t anticipating. To find out what keywords are being used simply go to Google’s Keyword Planner and find out. You can search any term and Google will tell how many times that term was searched for in a given time period and geographic region. Some keywords are searched for much more than others, and it’s important to know which ones to target for good SEO.

2. High-Quality Content

So you’ve done your research and identified keywords to target. Now you can create quality content that draws people to your website. “Quality” content is the key here. You don’t want to just create pages of fluff on your website with overuses of the targeted keyword just so Google will find you. You want to actually provide value for readers. Teach them something. Inform them. Give them advice. The best content will always add value, help, inform, and guide your readers.

3. Accessibility 

Search engines find your website and content by doing what is called a “crawl” through your website so they can “index” it in their databases. To quickly find out if your site is indexed, just go to Google and type – site:mydomain.com – using your domain. If most, or any, of your pages aren’t showing up then there’s an indexing problem. Another way to make your site more accessible to search engines is by adding more text, especially if your site is heavy on images and multimedia. Those are great for user experience, but search engines love text, and your visitors will love it, too.

4. Link building

One of the ways that search engines like Google reward website pages with higher rankings is by determining links to that page. The more high-quality links pointing to and from that page, the better. It’s easy to find a plethora of services offering to give you a high number of links for a small price, but be wary of this tactic. When it comes to link building, quality beats quantity. It’s better to have authority links, links that are from respectable – high-traffic sites, than to have thousands of links to sites that no one visits. Now, these high-quality links are much harder to get, but the reward is worth the effort and will do wonders for your search rankings. It will also benefit your readers as well, providing them with more value.

5. Social Media

One of the best ways to gain those high-quality links is with social media. As a business, social media can do wonders for your growth. Put your business on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google + and share your content on these channels. Search engines are putting more and more weight on social media as a determining factor in search rankings. “Social signals” are a great way to build authority while also engaging with potential customers.

Do your research when it comes to SEO. There are far more details and information about SEO than can be mentioned in this article. To start, check out Google’s SEO Guide, or simply Google “learn about SEO”. If Google trusts them, then they’re worth checking out.