If you decided to create your website, then you might have heard about the wonders of SEO and what it can do for you. Today at Dr. Rissy’s Writing & Marketing, we will walk you through SEO basics, what it is, how it works, and why you should be working on improving your SEO every day.

According to Search Engine Land, “SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization.’ In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility for relevant searches. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.” Search Engine Optimization is all about visibility. Let’s use Dr. Rissy’s as an example: we are a writing and marketing company located in New Jersey. Let’s say that you are looking for these services and do a Google search. If you type “marketing and writing services in New Jersey,” the first result you will see is our website.

Amazing! Right? That happens because every day we make sure to improve our SEO ranking to keep being number one in the search results. As you can see, SEO is important because millions of people search for different things online every day, and they can be looking for you. Whether you have a small business that sells cakes in your location or you offer corporate services online, you need to be visible to others and let them find you through different search engines.

Now that you know the basics, we are going to walk you through what you should do in order to increase your ranking and become the number one result at the most popular search engines such as Google and Bing.

How can I drive traffic from search engines?

 

Keep in mind that when you are working with SEO you have to be at the top of your game. Google is responsible for search engine traffic, and over the years they have changed the rules over and over again. That’s why if you decide to work with search engines you need to stay up to date with trends.

We are not going to lie, Google is complex, so we are going to share with you what we consider to be most important when it comes to improving your SEO ranking

-Share high-quality information on your website, make sure to upload content that is relevant for people who are looking for you.

-Make your website mobile-friendly, if your website works properly on different types of mobile devices then it will rank higher

-Crawling: a term used in SEO that helps you determine what content is working for your website. Go over your website content and start evaluating which content is performing better

-Make sure that your loading speed is good. When a website takes more than 5 seconds to load is likely that the person behind the screens leaves

Keyword research

 

The terms that people are searching are called “keywords.” One of the first steps when it comes to optimizing your SEO is to identify the terms that you want to rank higher at Google.

As an example for Dr. Rissy’s Writing and Marketing, we want the terms “marketing services,” “writing services,” “social media services,” and more to rank higher on the search results because that is what we specialize in and what we offer our clients. 

You need to determine as a business what people are looking for and how it can relate to your business. Also, there are a few factors that you should consider for keyword research such as search volume, relevance, and competition.

Also, you should look for a keyword planner that works for you. There are a bunch of them online and you can find paid or free versions of each one. The one that we like the most at the moment is Google Keyword Planner since it is native to Google and accessible. 

Learn about On-Page Optimization

 

You have your keywords; now it’s time to optimize your page. Keep in mind that each section of the website targets one or two of these keywords, and you should use them correctly.

An optimized page has title tags which is the text you can see on your tabs whenever you are going through a website. It should also include a meta description which is the additional copy that appears under the title whenever you are doing the Google search. 

The main goal of the meta description is to let you know more about what the reader is going to find on your website, and it has to make them interested enough to click on the link.

Then you have the body content on your page, which is the actual content on the site. You have to make your content readable and interesting enough so others can spend more time on your website. This content needs to have three attributes: be engaging, unique, and shareable.

Last but not least, you should keep an eye on your URL structure which should be short and descriptive. This helps search engines figure out what your website is all about. It might be hard for SEO to read if it’s too long, so you don’t need to add all the keywords, just the ones that are relevant for that specific page.

 

These are the most important aspects for us when it comes to SEO, but as we said initially, it is a never-ending world where you always need to keep learning to improve your ranking. Today, we covered the most common aspects of SEO to give you a guide that can help you start your journey.

At Dr. Rissy’s Writing & Marketing, we also have SEO services to help you take your website to the next level! We take care of you, your business, and your site.