Let’s look at what SEO is:
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine. SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results and excludes direct traffic/visitors and the purchase of paid placement. (Wikipedia)
We ALL want our websites to rank in online searches so that we attract more clients. That is a given. For me though, the very thought of performing SEO sends chills down my spine. SEO goes over my head as much as I try to understand it; optimised robots.txt, breadcrumbs, thin pages, XML sitemaps, HTML site maps, indexing, etc.; and the cost to a business to hire someone to do SEO on their website is very expensive when first starting out with the average cost being around AUD$495 per month.
So, what does it REALLY mean in terms of you and your business?
Search engine optimisation is nowadays more important than ever, and it is necessary for every webmaster to understand the true meaning of SEO as well as the potential it creates for every business.
Search engines serve millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or for solutions to their problems.
If you have a website, blog or online store, SEO can help your business grow and meet the business objectives.
Search engine optimisation is important because:
- The majority of search engines users are more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions in the results pages (SERPS). To take advantage of this and gain visitors to your website or customers to your online store, your website needs to appear in one of the top positions.
- SEO is not only about search engines, but good SEO practices improve the user experience and usability of a website.
- Users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching, increases the website’s trust.
- SEO is good for the social promotion of your website. People who find your website by searching Google or Yahoo are more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media channels.
- SEO is important for the smooth running of a big website. Web sites with more than one author can benefit from SEO in a direct and indirect way. Their direct benefit is an increase in search engine traffic and their indirect benefit is having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.
- SEO can put you ahead of the competition. If two websites are selling the same thing, the search engine optimised website is more likely to have more customers and make more sales.
I found this great infographic to assist you to do your own SEO. The Ultimate Checklist for Successful Integration of SEO on Your Website [ Digital Information World ]
SEO Do’s:
- Get backlinks from relevant sites
- Write well-researched and engaging content
- Use keywords in your titles, meta descriptions, and body text
- Do keyword research
- Become a guest blogger on trusted and reputable websites
- Monitor your backlinks
- Build internal links
- Create infographics
- Create a sitemap
- Make it easy for others to link to your website
- Be patient, SEO takes time
- Make your site user-friendly
- Write long content
- Learn from your best competitors
- Remove and disavow bad links
- Post fresh content often
- Make your website mobile friendly
- Build your website with SEO in mind
- Improve website speed
SEO Dont’s:
- Avoid irrelevant links
- Don’t be obsessed with the number of backlinks
- Don’t use PageRank as a metric to decide a backlink value
- Don’t do keyword stuffing
- Don’t get links from blog networks
- Don’t use cloaking and doorway pages
- Avoid sitewide backlinks
- Don’t write guest posts for bad sites
- Don’t use hidden text or links
- Avoid backlinks from pages with more than one hundred external links
- Don’t build backlinks only to your homepage
- Don’t over optimize anchor texts
- Never buy SEO services from the “offers” you get by email
- Don’t spam websites to build backlinks
- Don’t “Submit your site to over 1000 search engines.”
- Don’t buy cheap SEO services
- Don’t copy other website’s content
- Don’t trust “SEO experts” that promise to rank your website first for your main keyword
- Don’t link to penalized websites
- Don’t do link exchanges
- Don’t publish low-quality content
- Don’t accept spammy blog comments
- Don’t trust everything you read about SEO
- Ads above the fold
- Don’t sell do follow links
My advice, if you don’t want to do SEO yourself, save your pennies and get it professionally done.
