SEO Basics

This part of the site was created specifically for novices and contains articles explaining some basic SEO concepts, such as optimization strategies, keyword research, optimal site structure and code improvements, linking, content writing, etc. This information will be helpful for those who are new to the subject of search engine optimization and want to learn about SEO in simple terms.

PLANNING A SITE

A lot of people will start planning a site by choosing a theme or a set of templates, trying to settle on a design without putting too much thought into anything else. But design is just a wrapper. And what is a wrapper without the content? It’s meaningless.

If certain packaging can attract the eyes of a store visitor facing a shelf with numerous options, on the Internet search engines become our eyes and that fact changes quite a few things. Search engines are colorblind and appearance indifferent. They see words. They don’t understand them, but they know how to calculate the frequency of their appearance on a given page, therefore defining the importance of these words or phrases within the context. They can find synonyms and get pretty tricky with vocabulary associations. Their definition of beauty, if you will, is a well structured and unique content. So, it will be helpful for you to start thinking in these terms.

Mark this as our tip #1: Content is “beautiful”. Content is what attracts search engines. Content is what will lead new visitors to your site (and perhaps retain them in the long run). In other words – Content is King!

CREATING CONTENT

Web content is the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations.

Let’s say that we’ve got some great material that we want to share with the world. We have typed it up, found some images or videos to make it comprehensive and more presentable. Now the question is: “What should we do to get it found via, let’s say, Google web search?”

What will you say if we start with a little experiment? Let’s see how word saturation and phrase variations may have an effect on one’s content being indexed by a search engine.

Open Google web search. Make up a search phrase with three words in it. Try to change the order of the words every time you press the search button. See how the search results will differ each time. Some of the websites will remain on the first page although the search phrase changes.

If you see see the word “Cached” next to a search result, click on it. When the page opens scroll down. You will see the keywords all over the page, highlighted with different colors.

What does it tell you? In order to be found by means of web search, you need to make sure that you have the right words on your pages. And to pick the right words to include in your content, we need to define who might be looking for it and what exactly they will be searching for.

Knowing who your potential visitors might be is more important than you may think!

If you are writing your texts for a professional crowd or people who are familiar with the terms used in a specific industry, then go ahead and show off your knowledge of pro lingo. However, if you are trying to attract visitors who might not be well equipped with the terminology used by your fellow colleagues, then come down a notch and try to think as if you were them.

Although content optimization goes far beyond guessing an exact search phrase that people will use to search for the information you provide, but it surely will be a good start. Let’s say you publish a post about dog grooming. It is very unlikely that your page will appear on the search engine result pages (SERPs) for the term “SEO basics” since it won’t even have these words in it (or is in any way related to the subject). Search engines try to suggest the most relevant information considering the words that one uses in his or her search.

Note: A dance instructor may call his studio sessions “lessons”. People who are looking for his services may be inclined to call them “dance classes”. Lawyers, financial advisors, etc. should consider their wording very carefully since a lot of their potential clients may poses a limited knowledge of the terms operated in their professional environment.

When you think you have a preliminary list of keywords/phrases that you think should be on your pages, it’s time check your work.

One way to do that is to use Google’s External Keyword Tool

Open this tool in a separate window and try it out. Type in the terms you’ve written down in your list, click Search (keep the Website form field empty). Google will give you an estimate of how many searches are being done for a given term monthly. You will also see synonyms and phrases related to your picks. Look through them, see if there’s something you may like.

If you know your competition, you may also want to see what keywords your competitors’ sites contain on their pages by entering their web address and leaving “word or phrase” box empty. This may give you some suggestions and ideas for keyword you might have missed.

As you figure out which keywords/phrases you will be working with, make sure they are used in your pages.

KEYWORDS IN PAGES

Now, as we’ve discussed some initial steps in preparation for publishing our content, we are moving on to the first real hands-on task. This basic SEO technique is referred by some as “keyword stuffing”. And it is exactly what its name suggests stuffing your pages with keywords that you want to be indexed for.

Usually one will define 4 to 6 variations of a phrase with the same keyword or its synonyms and try to place them evenly throughout the text on a given page. If let’s say your page covers the subject of SEO Basics your set of keywords may consist of “seo basics”, “basic seo”, “basics of seo”, “search engine optimization basics” and “simple seo”.

Incorporate selected keywords into

• Page name
• Meta description for the page
• Headers (h1,h2…)
• Image descriptions (alt=”", title=”")
• Page URL

Do not over-do it. Make sure that your content is still readable. Otherwise you may upset your visitors with the SPAMy nature of your texts. If you can’t find a place within the content to include some of these keywords, you may try creating special text blocks around the page (examples: notes, quotes, etc) that don’t necessarily have to follow the flow of your writing.

Note:Try to use unique keywords or phrases for each page. Try not to overlap them from page to page. It may dilute the importance of your page in relation to a give keyword.

PAGE STRUCTURE

Another very important factor in search engine optimization is page structure. There’s a separate article on our website devoted to this subject. It’s called The Best SEO Page Layout. The main idea behind it is this: Try to keep your main header (the title of your page included within <h1></h1> tags) as close to the top of your page as possible. Next thing that should be placed on the page is your main text. Keep your repetitive page elements that show up on multiple pages, such as navigation menus, contact info, etc. closer to the bottom of the page. There are ways to keep this page structure without damaging the visual appearance of your site. For example this site is build just in such a way that the search engine bots see everything in the order suggested above, however visitors see everything quite in a different way.

You may want to consult your webmaster on how to optimize your page structure. If you maintain your own design and feel comfortable with optimizing the page code on your own, look into CSS (cascading style sheets) and their use for creating search engine optimized structure and maintaining the desired visual design of your site.

THE IMPORTANCE of LINKING

As you define your keywords, insert them into your content and make sure your have a clean, optimized page structure, you are ready to publish your posts online. Very soon your content will be indexed by search engines. However your pages may not show up anywhere close to the top of SERPs. Being on the 6th, 5th or even 2nd result page will not help you that much. People will usually find what they are looking for among the first 10 results that Google will serve them. So, how do we get closer to the top? How do we get discovered by others?

You have probably noticed, when you searched on Google or Yahoo, that at the top of the page with results there’s information on how many pages that are indexed by the search engine contain the words you were searching for. The number may be in thousands or even millions. The pages found on the 10th page of search results may be stuffed with keywords just as much as one from the 1st page. So, there must be something else that will effect your search engine placing. And there is!

If everyone claimed that their page was the best source of information on the subject how would search engines know who is telling the truth?

One way (the best way so far) is to see whether other people think that your content is good. And how can search engines know what other people think about your content? They try to look for the references in a form of links from external sources or other people’s websites. If others link to your pages, it means that your pages are worth noticing. So, besides counting the frequency of word repetitions within your pages, search engines also count the number of links coming from other websites to yours.

EXTERNAL LINKING

No you know how important the role of external links (links coming from other sites) is when it comes to success of your own site. The more links you have the higher your ranking as a site with authority on a particular subject will be.

Another important factor, besides the link count, is which anchor text (linked text or words in a link) is used to refer your pages and the context surrounding the links. Yes, search engines pay attention to that as well.

Note:If you do link exchange with others give them the text you want your page to be linked with. Make sure that you use the keywords your page is optimized for. This will improve the keyword count for the page, although the keyword is located somewhere else.

INTERNAL LINKING

Internal linking represents link-references to a page within your domain from other pages of your website. Your site menu is a good example of internal linking. Using the right words in these links will also improve indexing of your pages for specific keywords. So, make sure you choose your words wisely when you link pages within your site.

These were some some basic SEO tips. We hope you find this information helpful. If you have question, you may ask them at our FaceBook page or by contacting us via email.

Note: Drastic changes made to an existing website may lead to unexpected and traumatic consequences. If you are planning to optimize an aged or established website (over a year old) with a great number of pages, please refer to more advanced SEO tutorials or seek professional help.