Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process online businesses go through to ensure their site ranks in the search engines for specific keywords and phrases. Considering more than 3 billion searches are made on Google alone every day, it’s important to have a search strategy that’ll improve visibility and put your company in front of consumers. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine making SEO vital, but how does SEO work exactly?
SEO Insights
The exact algorithm Google uses to rank sites will never be completely transparent and is constantly changing. But what we do know is that relevancy is an important factor. Google has a job to do and that’s to deliver the most relevant content for a specific search. So, SEO is all about crafting content that considers several things including:
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Keywords
Using the right keywords through your content and in specific places such as headers, sub-headers, meta descriptions and image alt text will help Google to understand what you want to rank for. Content that includes words and phrases that people search for is much more likely to appear for a search than content that hasn’t been keyword optimised. So, it’s really important to conduct thorough keyword research to guide your content strategy.
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Search Intent
Search giants like Google have spent big money thinking about the intent behind a search. Therefore, when crafting content you must keep the consumer in mind. What might they type into a search engine to reach your content? And what is already ranking for the keywords you’re focusing on. Think about content type, content format and content angle.
One of the best ways to get content creation ideas is to look at the first page of the search engine result pages (SERPs) for a specific keyword or keyword phrase to see the type of content Google deems ‘most relevant.’ Look at specific trends such as lists, videos and content angles which might target a specific audience. For example, a search for ‘banana bread’ might focus on the words ‘quick’ or ‘easy’ suggesting users want hassle-free baking ideas. From there, you can start to weave this information into your own SEO strategy.
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Usefulness
Position 0 is the new kid on the block when it comes to search rankings. It appears at the very top of the SERPs before any of the other organic listings and is home to ‘featured snippets.’ These snippets are centred around answering search questions. So, when crafting your SEO content, it’s a good idea to try and get the featured snippet position for a specific query. A good way to do this is to give your content a question and answer structure. Interestingly, you can reach Position 0 even if your website as a whole doesn’t appear within the top SERPs.
On-Page Vs Off-Page SEO
SEO focuses on the same goal – to rank for specific terms organically. But there are many ways to achieve such results including on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO means optimising content, meta tags and other elements on your own site’s pages. Off-page SEO involves any activities that drive awareness and referral traffic to your site from other sites. This could be via social media, guest blogging, link building, PR and such like.
Considering 75% of consumers never click past the first search engine results page, SEO should be a top priority for businesses everywhere. It’s also the number one driver to content sites, beating social media by 300%. For a reliable Kent SEO agency, speak with Whitefish Marketing today for all your SEO requirements.
