SEO for Dummies
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can seem like an impossible task when you are starting out and have no idea what you are doing – trust me, I’d know. That’s why we have decided to dumb it down for you all in a simple blog post on SEO for dummies.
Let’s get started with a few basic tips, tools and strategies:
Setup
During the setup stage, you should prepare yourself for success. Your SEO strategy needs a solid foundation before you start building your “house”. In this case the foundation consists of tools like Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Webmaster Tools.
- Google AdWords is very useful as it pertains to SEO for its keyword research tool. This valuable tool allows you to discover what users are searching for, so you are able to cater to their specific needs.
- Google Analytics will play a large role in tracking and analyzing how users interact with your site. Since it is free of charge and quite intuitive, it is a necessity for every singe SEO campaign.
- Google Webmaster Tools allows you to get the most out of your SEO efforts by allowing you to view your site through the eyes of Google. This gives you keen insight into how your pages are performing, what links are pointing to it, which keywords are working, and what needs to be fixed.
Site Audit
If you have a website, you will want to perform a site audit when kicking off your SEO. With every passing month, Google is becoming more stern with its penalties, and their rules are becoming more specific. The best way to make sure that your site is in compliance, is to perform a detailed site audit with one of these useful tools: Moz Site Audit Checklist or WooRank.
WWW or No WWW
This SEO for dummies tip is one of the more underrated ones yet. The ‘www’ at the start of a link doesn’t normally matter too much, except when it comes to how the search engines view your site and how links pointing to your website are treated. You can choose to either go with the ‘www’ or without it, but it is very important to choose just one. If you go with both, the search engines will see your website as two separate sites, which can have a bad effect on your rankings and link quality.
Keyword Research
Many experts go as far as to say that keyword research is the most important part of SEO. It is hard to argue with that statement, since there are several statistics that back it up. If you are really serious about SEO, you are going to need to invest heavily in keyword research. For your website to stand out, you have to appropriately optimize. In order to do this you need to start with keyword research. Everything else will fall into place after you understand exactly what your audience is searching for.
Navigation
When it comes to SEO for dummies, navigation is important on two ends. First off, it is vital that visitors are to be able to navigate quickly and easily through your site’s pages. Secondly, search engines need to be able to find clear connections between individual links and web pages.
On-Page Content
While there is very important behind the scenes work that goes into search engine optimization, you still need high quality content for visitors to view and read when your SEO pays off and they visit your site. Google’s latest algorithm puts a major emphasis on useful, high-quality writing rather than heavy keyword usage. It is important that you avoid keyword stuffing and instead make use of calculated, well-placed keywords. Your best bet is to target one keyword phrase per page. And as for the structure of your content, each page should have a distinct arrangement and headings.
That’s it for our post on SEO for dummies. SEO doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems, as long as you take it step by step and abide by the rules of Google. And if it all just seems like too much work, that is what our team at BMG Marketing is for.