Some marketers like to think of SEO as the moon landing of the 21st century. It may have happened; it may work, they do not know for sure.
SEO does not have to be complicated or cryptic. SEO is about nurturing existing relationships, building new ones and attracting new customers. Small businesses need SEO. If you do not have a search engine optimization plan, you will be hustling a lot of money and time, something you cannot afford on a regular basis.
How to get started with SEO?
Keyword selection is essential for SEO, and it is also your standard starting point. Picking your first set of keywords may seem a little daunting if you are doing it completely manually. You can start with easy tools from SEO Services Singapore. If you are a registered business with an online presence, you must already have Google Keywords Planner on your team. Start with their keyword suggestions. Verify the trends with WordSteam, WordPot, and WordTracker.
The logical next step
You need to create great content. The content should have the following characteristics –
- Unique
- Grammatically correct
- Interesting
- With lots of subheads, bullet points, and relevant references
- Long-form (at least 1000-1200 words)
- Not keyword stuffed
You should always remember to write for a human audience. It is true; Google bots will crawl your pages and rank them in order. However, bots are becoming increasingly “human” in their reading approach. If some content is not grammatically correct, unique or it does not sound as exciting, you can forget favorable reactions from Google.
How to optimize on-page SEO?
The first step towards implementing on-page SEO is to include your keyword at least once in every 300-400 words. Sadly, there is no one recipe for all keywords. Google does not like repetitions. Do not stuff your keywords. You can include slight variations of your keywords and synonyms too.
Once you are done with that, move on to optimizing your URLs and meta descriptions. Your URL needs to have your keyword verbatim. Here are the few other places you should always include your keywords –
- Page title
- Meta description
- Image description
- Alt title for images
- First Header tag
Once you have added your keywords, make sure there are no stop words in these places. Stop words include articles (a, an, the) and prepositions (for, in, on, etc.). Google inherently ignores all stop words, and they do not contribute to your on-page optimization.
Your page meta description and your title should be an advert for your web page. Don’t try to include everything you have on your page. Any search engine will only display about 70 characters for the title and 160 characters for the description. So keep it tight, people. Include your keyword within limits. Do not forget to use multiple Hi tags throughout your content.
Make Yoast your best friend
If you are on WordPress, try Yoast for SEO. Yoast is one of the best free plugins there is. It will help you with the readability of your content, keyword placement, keyword density and overall search engine optimization. Yoast helps users to create an information hierarchy. The logical architecture of your body copy will make it more inviting for readers. This will garner more CTR and bring more organic traffic too.
Is there more to on-page optimization?
Of course, there is more to it. Keywords are just the tip of the iceberg. Once you are satisfied with your keyword-craft, move on to link building. Likes are two kinds –
- Outbound
- Inbound
While outbound links take your readers to reference sites or reference pages on your domain for more information. Inbound links bring you more readers from other sites who are interested in knowing what you have to say about a topic they are reading. If you want to make it to #1 position of the SRL, you need to work on your link building.
Many of our patrons ask us about the ideal ratio of the inbound to outbound links. Sadly, the answer is not as easy. Google does not give us an exact ratio or guideline for the same. Outbound links and external links are the same. If your links are high quality, authority links, you can easily maintain a 1:1 ratio.
Some websites report an increase in traffic when they increase their inbound links to a whopping 20%. Our experience tells us, the ideal ratio is not a constant. It varies between the different websites depending on what they are selling.
SEO does not have to be exorbitant and byzantine. You need the right SEO partner who can help you find out what your site and blog lack. A good SEO can help you make up for lost CTR and conversion rate by simply tweaking the factors mentioned above.
Author Bio: Harold Luke is a digital marketing analyst. He has been a part of the SEO Services Singapore. He has helped hundreds of SMBs shrug off bad website traffic and conversion rates, and embrace a high organic traffic.
