SEO vs SEM/PPC
First off we have to distinguish the two because people often get them confused. SEO is Search Engine Optimization which we will be focusing on in this article. SEO is free and is purely based on Google’s secret formula for ranking websites. SEM is Search Engine Marketing, PPC is Pay Per Click these are ways to pay Google to put your website on the top of google searches using keywords. You have to pay for each time someone clicks on that link. There are 3 main things you need to learn when trying to organically reach the first page on google. They are keywords, website optimization, and linking, all are used together to find out how valuable you are to the person trying to google you.
Website optimization
Website optimization takes place not on the website face as much as it’s in the code with subtle changes that make a world of difference. There is a shortlist we will go over in this section.
URLs
This is a very simple and quick one but it should be optimized using keywords. Most URLs naturally have a lot of symbols and random words after the .com. Shortening it to include just a quick recap of the page will improve SEO.
Meta Tags
These are in the HTML code of a website and don’t show up anywhere. They are short pieces of text of the content on the page that include the title tag, description tag, and other tags.
Title Tag
The title tag is the name of a web page in the tab of a browser. Checking this to make sure it’s saying the right thing on the browser. It should be between 50 and 60 characters because it cuts off at 67.
Description Tag
This is below the title tag and should be the second part of the listing. This is where you tell people why you should click on this website and purchase/learn about your products/service. This should be between 150 and 160 characters.
Heading and text
Headings range from H1 to H6, your primary heading should be in H1 and subheadings H2. Search engines look for the headings for the content and the keywords would be.
Images and Alt Text
Search engines use alt text and file name to find out what the image is about. You should include keywords in the file name of the image, alt text, and captions.
Linking
Linking is one of the biggest ways to increase SEO for our website. There are many times of linking but I will be talking about only a few of them. Link building helps with increasing the total number of backlinks to your website. Make sure they are from relevant and related websites. Make sure you are always checking links regularly so they work and you can always add fresh ones. Quality over quantity too with backlinks because you want users to go to your page because it is related to what they originally searched. The best way to increase backlinks with other websites is content marketing. Make your website with original content that is valuable, informative, and entertaining. Always link your social media on all your pages to connect your brand image and make you more assessable.
What not to do
Make sure you don’t get backlinks from spam websites because it might help in the short term but long term will hurt your website ranking. This is called link farming, it’s a service that helps boost your popularity by automatically entering you into link exchange programs. This might sound goof but it creates no traffic and that is one of the three main things you need to achieve.
