Here’s a question that I get almost daily, “When it Comes to SEO, What Should You Focus On”? Lets start with defining the term
What is SEO?
What is SEO?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It is the strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the number of visitors to a website. SEO is used to improve the quantity and quality of traffic that is earned through the organic (i.e. un-paid) results in search engines. This is done by incorporating search engine friendly elements into a website. If your site is properly optimized, it will have a better chance of appearing closer to the top positions in the search results of Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engines.
An significant aspect of SEO is making your website easy for both users and search engine robots to understand. Although search engines have become increasingly sophisticated, they still cannot see and understand a web page the same way a human can. SEO helps the search engines figure out what each page is about, and how it may be useful for users.
The following is a (simplified) list of things you should focus on when optimizing your page.
- The quality of your content. Good content is critical! Search engines are constantly improving their algorithms with the goal of delivering the best content to users. The actual quality of your content is and should always be the core focus of your SEO activities. Google is a search engine which delivers content. They are looking for the best content and every algorithm update they make is in effort to find and deliver the best content to its users. That is their business, that is how they make money. Create thorough, helpful and informative content.
- Targeting Keywords. Every page/post you create should emphasize certain keywords within it’s content. Ideally, target keywords should be somewhere within the title, within the first paragraph and then as you write and throughout the article.
- Engagement/Comments. Encourage comments – Dialogue within your content is a strong indicator that people are actually reading your content, that it is of high quality. People will engage in content that they enjoy, that they trust, and often times content that already has comments and dialogue within it.
- User Experience. Google focuses a good deal of it’s time and energy determining whether or not a website is a quality user experience. Google focuses on web page load times, responsive design, how easy the content is to read/interpret, content length, and structuring of your content.
- Your Overall Website Authority. This will happen over time. As you build out a website in any niche, you are going to gain more and more authority naturally (assuming you are doing so in a way that focused on quality). Consistent content creation, consistent engagement within your content, and time are what will lead to website authority.
Here is Killer SEO Checklist [Infographic] by the team at Capsicum Mediaworks, LLP
