Introduction to SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO for short is the process of increasing the visibility of website pages on search engines to attract more relevant traffic. SEO has a few main components keyword research which can be done through software like Google AdWorks, quality control, and website structure. Keywords are search terms that people use to find information, products, or services online. However, keyword stuffing where a webpage is loaded with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in the search results should be avoided. Keyword stuffing is an example of overoptimization.

SEO is related to SERPs or search engine results pages. The goal of SEO is for websites to appear at higher positions in the results pages of search engines like Google and Facebook. Higher rankings in SERPs in search engine client-side users finding websites more easily and more traffic to those websites.

Keyword research

Keyword research is an integral part of SEO. Keyword research is the process of identifying common search terms and phrases consumers use to find products or services online. There are three keyword matching types:

1. Broad Match
2. Phrase Match
3. Exact Match

A broad match shows ads on phrases that relate to your keyword. In other words, when a client-side user to a search engine types a phrase into the search engine an ad will be displayed on phrases that relate to your keyword. A broad match will return the most search results. Secondly, a phrase match are keywords that include the meaning of your keyword. A phrase keyword is included in quotes like “energy drink”. A phrase match on “energy drinks” will return results related to energy drinks, purchase energy drinks, different energy drinks, etc. A phrase match will return more results than an exact match but fewer results than a broad march. Lastly, An exact match are searches that have the same meaning or the same intent as the keyword. For exact matches, ads will be displayed when a client-side user searches the exact keyword. An exact match will return the least amount of search results.

The effectiveness of these ads or the ad rank is determined by three factors

1. Your bid
2. Quality of your ads and landing page
3. Ad extensions

The topic of Google Ads will be explored more in-depth in separate blog posts.

Website content and structure

Broadly, a website should be easy to use and the client-side user should be no more than 3 clicks from the homepage. A website needs to be compelling to the client and be useful, interesting, and provide distinct information. The website’s owner should know their audience and what their visitors want and provide that. Attention should be paid to spelling and grammar and errors should be avoided. A website owner should make their expertise and authoritativeness clear.  The content of a website needs to be factually accurate, clearly written, and comprehensive. Overall, a website needs to provide a great user experience.

Google Search Console is a valuable tool for website owners. A website needs to be added and verified for ownership on Google Search Console. This ensures that Google can find and read your website pages. A website needs to be usable for both desktop and mobile users. It is recommended that you develop a sitemap like the one this website possesses. A sitemap is a file that provides information about the pages, videos, and other files on a website, and the relationship between them.

Lastly, a website’s perfomance should constantly be monitored. One software this website uses is Google Analytics. A more complete list of most of the software we use can be found on our SEO resources page.

To get in contact with us and get a FREE analysis of your website fill out our contact form now. To view more blog posts about SEO, Divi, WordPress, WordPress plugins, computer science topics, or other related topics, visit our website’s blog section.