The ABCs of SEO
By Geraldine Maclear - Happy Pedals
Do you have a new or updated website? That’s exciting!
After investing in a great-looking site, you’ll want to set it up for success.
“Search engine optimization”, or SEO, is one aspect of web design you may not have heard about. It’s an important foundation for long-term growth of traffic to your website.
This article covers the basics. The ABCs of SEO!
What is SEO?
Let’s use a retail store as an analogy for a website. The store designer is like a website designer. They make sure the storefront appeals to people walking by. Once inside, the layout should be easy to navigate. The interior is designed with the target audience in mind. Selling clothing for young people? Think bright colours and loud music. Setting up a day spa? A soothing palette and gentle background sounds are a better choice.
How does SEO fit into this analogy?
If the store is located in a tiny back alley with almost no foot traffic, the effort to make a perfect space is wasted!
Think of SEO as a way to get your store on a busy main street with your ideal customers walking by all day. That’s good for business.
For a website: SEO is work you can do to improve your chance of ranking well in search results.
Let’s break that down…
What are “search results”?
The list of web pages you get after searching for a phrase. Something like this:
What does “ranking well” mean?
Appearing near the top of search results, ideally on page one.
SEO improves the ranking in “organic” search results. This excludes paid and sponsored results.
What are “search engines”?
The most widely used search engine is Google. Others include Bing and DuckDuckGo.
In this article, we’ll talk about Google because it accounts for over 90% of online searches.
Good news: If you optimize for Google, you’ll also be optimizing for other search engines!
Web pages are indexed by Google.
Robots constantly “crawl” websites. You can also manually request Google to index a page using Google Search Console.
Tip: It’s a good idea to set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These tools gather very useful data.
When someone searches for a phrase, Google uses its index to find results.
Results are presented to the user in a certain order based on Google’s secret algorithm.
This algorithm uses over 200 factors and it changes daily, so it may seem like there’s no way to know how to rank well! But don’t panic! Google publishes best practice guidelines, and SEO analysts run experiments to learn more.
Occasional big algorithm updates are publicly announced by Google.
Why is SEO important?
Let’s start with some stats.
“68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.” BrightEdge
“SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media.” BrightEdge
If your business needs a steady stream of new clients, a well optimized website is very cost effective. And it can work for you 24/7.
Is it easy to get to the number one position in search results?
No.
Is it possible?
Yes, if you:
carefully choose the search phrases you are targeting
do the work to make it clear to Google what your web page is about
create useful, unique content on your website
Working on your SEO will gradually build the “authority” of your website. And you’ll get more search traffic from your ideal customers.
For most websites, it takes about 3 months to see the full benefits of search engine optimization changes. You may see some quick wins, but don’t count on them.
Unlike paid ads, if you improve your SEO for a while then take a break, the results don’t immediately stop. The effects are cumulative.
Search engine optimization tasks
The various tasks can be divided into:
Technical SEO
On-page optimization
Off-page optimization
Technical SEO
This checks technical aspects of a website.
It’s highly recommended to do this first. If you have a new website, your developer has probably already taken care of this for you!
You might have a beautiful website with lots of rich, useful content. But if it has issues like slow load time or broken links, your chance of ranking well is low.
Don’t let technical SEO scare you!
Slow loading is often due to images which are too big. This is easy to fix.
Animations may slow things down. They are easy to remove.
Broken links are also simple to fix once you know they exist.
If there are issues preventing your website from loading quickly even after you’ve fixed the easy stuff, it’s time to get help from your web developer.
On-page optimization
This is work you can do on your own website. Every time you add a new page, remember SEO!
The tasks include:
Optimizing Title Tags.
What are Title Tags? Special HTML fields giving extra information to search engines about a web page.
The Title Tags of every page need well crafted text based on keyword research (keywords are search phrases).
Focus on your main web pages first.
Rich, useful, unique content.
Write content for your web pages which will answer questions your users might have.
Include images and graphics if appropriate, or links to videos.
Create original content.
Remember: If ChatGPT can easily write something - it’s probably already been written! Include your unique perspectives and experience.
Great use of internal links.
When a user finishes reading a web page, is there a link at the bottom to other pages which might interest them?
Use lots of internal links to construct your website like a little bird’s nest.
Add links from pages with high traffic to pages which need a boost.
Good layout.
Use headings, sub-headings, bold text, bulleted lists and whitespace to make your pages easy to read.
Remember: People scan web pages. They don’t read every word like a novel.
Off-page optimization
This is work done off your website.
Social media plays a part in off-page optimization.
Any activities which build your brand and get people to your website can help.
Building backlinks is important.
What are backlinks? Links from other websites to yours. Think of them as “votes of confidence”.
Focus on getting backlinks from relevant, reputable websites.
Buying backlinks is risky.
If it’s very easy to get a link from another website to yours, it’s unlikely to be worthwhile.
Getting backlinks takes time and effort.
Backlinks Tips:
Your local chamber of commerce may have a directory where you can list your business.
Other reputable directories like Yelp and Hotfrog are good places to list your business for free.
You can write an opinion piece or informative article on a website which is looking for guest writers.
Do some research into how to write a pitch email for a “guest post”.
To find websites which offer guest posts, do a Google search formatted like this (if you’re a landscaper, in this example):
landscaping intitle:”write for us”
If you write a testimonial for someone and they put it on their website, they might give you a backlink. If not, send a friendly email saying you’re working on your SEO and would really appreciate a link.
Journalists are often looking for material to publish. If you’re launching a business or have something interesting to share, contact your local newspaper. Or learn about sending out a press release.
Ways to do SEO
The three possible approaches are “do it yourself”, “done with you”, and “done for you”.
Let’s examine them to see which is a good fit for you.
DIY
If you’re able to edit your own website and have time to learn about SEO, do it yourself!
It’s an interesting field and there’s plenty of training material online.
If you take a backup of your website before making changes, and experiment with one change at a time, you’re unlikely to break anything.
Coursera has free courses.
SEO tool providers like Semrush have free tutorials.
If you pay for a course you’ll get a more comprehensive overview.
You can learn a lot by looking at other websites. Examine their meta tags, check their load speed, etc. You can view the source code of any website.
Done with you
If you’re able to edit your own website, but don’t have time to study SEO, this is a good choice.
It’s budget-friendly, and you’ll learn from the written report you receive.
You’ll work with an SEO service provider who’ll review your website and provide a detailed report.
They’ll run your website through industry-standard tools and do a manual check of your website on desktop and mobile devices.
You’ll get feedback on technical, on-page and off-page SEO as well as a graph showing levels of traffic to your website from online searches.
The report should include:
Issues to fix, in priority order.
Opportunities for improvement now, and a plan for future changes.
Explanations for everything in the report.
To have the best chance of ranking well, “keyword research” can be included to find out:
Which phrases your target market is searching for the most
How many other websites are competing for those phrases
Possible alternatives to target to have a good chance of ranking well
The package you buy could include a call to go through the report together and discuss questions.
If you have a brand new website, ask for a package specifically for this. You’re unlikely to have many technical issues. Keyword research will be important to give your website the best chance to rank well for achievable search phrases.
To get some accountability and a sanity check, schedule a follow-up call to review changes you’ve made.
Done for you
When you don’t have the time to learn about SEO or work on your own website, look for a reliable SEO agency.
It’s a good idea to ask for references and talk to previous clients.
Read the contract Terms and Conditions carefully before signing.
Make sure you’ll own the copyright of any changes made by the agency on your website.
The agency will plan a strategy for you.
They can make changes on your website for you.
They’ll ask you to commit to a few months – SEO takes time, and results take time.
They should provide regular reporting.
This article talked about what SEO is, why it’s important, and ways to implement it. I hope you found it useful!
I offer “done with you” SEO services and copywriting through my business, Happy Pedals. I love to talk about SEO and would be happy to answer any questions. I also give short presentations to groups. I would like to see ALL small business owners getting the MOST from their websites by taking full advantage of SEO.
