Understanding How SEO Works
Written by Courtney Raguso, Social Media Content Creator
So…what’s the deal with SEO?
With the increasing amount of information available on the internet, finding what you need would be nearly impossible without some help sorting through it. Search ranking systems are a series of algorithms that are designed to sort through information on the web to find the most relevant results with the highest quality and usability. This is where SEO comes in. Search engine optimization is a powerful process that helps your website rank higher in search engine result pages, also known as SERPs, and can be extremely effective if executed well.
SEO really comes down to creating content your audience is actively looking for because search algorithms display certain information based on what people are searching. The goal you need to focus on is to provide a solution for your audience, and bridge the gap between web searchers and your business. People search the internet for answers, and you’re competing against millions of other sites, so making sure your website is fully developed is key. There are no shortcuts, and creating quality content from the ground up is the best way to rank high and drive people to your site. The algorithm that ranks your site looks at many factors including usability of pages, expertise of sources, the locations and the posting date. So, there are many ways you can use SEO to optimize your website to get a good page rank.
Search engines look for many elements such as title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure and backlinks. They also look for site structure and design as well as visitor behavior in order to determine how high a site should rank in the search. So including as many keywords as possible isn’t going to cut it. Doing so will hurt your website’s SEO and be considered keyword stuffing. In fact, 3% of the content alone can be keywords, and that’s a lot of keywords. It’s also important to avoid using duplicate content and copying someone’s work…and yes, even your own. Search engines, as well as visitors, will notice if you do reuse content, and this will hurt your SEO. If you want to bring visitors to your site and convert them into actual customers, you need to understand the importance of SEO practice and how it works. Making your website optimized for search engines is an art, and takes a lot of time and effort to build, but there are key factors to keep in mind in order to have your bases covered.
As we keep reinforcing, be consumer centric! You need to understand your target audience, what they might be looking for and identify terms your audience use in the search engine. You need to also build your site’s credibility. One way to achieve this is with the use of inbound and outbound links. Inbound links are links from another site to your own, which are more credible, while outbound links come from your website to another. Adding more unique pages to your site is also an important factor to keep in mind. Indexed by search engines, adding these content filled pages allows you to target long tail keywords or key phrases that are more specific. These types of keywords tend to have a higher conversion rate because they are more descriptive. More high quality content gives visitors a reason to stay and revisit your site.
Search engine optimization is a dynamic field, and changes that affect it and the revamping of the algorithms associated with it, can make it hard to figure out what works and what doesn’t. If a business doesn’t understand how SEO works and executes, it will lose visibility online and fail to attract potential customers necessary for its survival. The more on-page SEO elements you address effectively, the higher your site will rank in organic searches.
At MSM DesignZ, we understand the anatomy of SEO and how it all works. We weave it into our online marketing strategies, aligning our copywriters, designers and developers to create the ideal user experience for our client’s site visitors. Being consumer centric and focusing on providing your audience different ways to connect with your brand will increase the odds of obtaining and converting your audience. With resources and connections in all the right places, along with expert knowledge in search engine optimization, our team can make those conversions possible. Want to improve your online rankings? Call our main office in Tarrytown at (914) 909-5900, and we’ll work with you to devise a custom plan that will promote decision making for your brand. We look forward to working with you!
Sources
https://mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/seo/