When starting up a website, many people are confronted with the marketing strategy called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
While implementing SEO is easy and straightforward, the concept of search engine optimisation escapes many people who are new to internet marketing.
This makes sense since SEO runs contrary to many traditional marketing strategies that have been used for decades outside the internet. Understanding the fundamentals of SEO is vital towards having it work for your website. By understanding what SEO is about, you can learn to master it which will boost the number of visitors to your sites. SEO is just like any other technique that requires research, learning, and trial-and-error to get right, so do not be intimidated by it.
While Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been around for several years, there are still many misconceptions about how it works. Even with the advent of social media and emphasis on video, SEO is still going strong and will be the driving force in internet marketing for the foreseeable future. So, here are 10 things that you may not fully understand about how search engine optimisation works.
Keywords are not the most important part of SEO
Keywords, which are the words used by those searching for the products or services you are offering, are important, but not the only aspect of SEO. While you need the right keywords to rank highly on search result pages, you will need far more to maintain the ranking. This is because the Google algorithms also measure dozens of other aspects, including content, download speed, presentation, and so forth in calculating your search result.
SEO requires a lot of time and built up knowledge
There is truth to both statements as the concept of SEO and implementation is easy and straightforward. However, getting it right using the proper research and techniques can be difficult, especially if you are not skilled in finding out what works. There are also several technical aspects to SEO, such as canonical tags, text file editing, and so forth which may look quite intimidating at first. However, most people can learn the basics in a few hours and become quite adept at SEO techniques with effort.
SEO is always a learning process
To put it another way, the SEO techniques you use today will be different tomorrow if you want to maintain your search rankings. This is because SEO is more art than science and will require trial-and-error to ensure that it works. Plus, you’ll need to learn about new SEO techniques to stay on top.
Your have to be really careful where you get your backlinks from
There is this rumor that link building is basically spam and will get your site banned. The truth is that link building can be quite productive if you do it the right way. The key is not to link to sites which are poor, but instead focus on sites that provide you with benefits. One or two backlinks to quality sites is far better than dozens of links from bad sites.
It is important to continually optimise your site and all new pages on it
You may get the idea that because SEO is not all that it is cracked up to be, that you do not need to spend much time on it. You do need to employ solid, effective SEO techniques across your site for maximum benefit. This means that you cannot shirk the SEO part of your marketing effort. So, even if your budget is low, you’ll still need to allocate the proper resources to make your SEO effective.
Black hat SEO tactics are not going to work
In other words, using SEO to trick Google by loading up on keywords, spamming, and the like is the best way to pull in potential customers. That could not be further from the truth today. Not only will spamming get you shut down quick, other methods such as content marketing are being emphasised. So, you will need to learn proper SEO techniques and implement them accordingly if you want your website to stay active and draw in visitors.
SEO is more than optimising your site in one go
It’s amazing how many people think that SEO can only be used one time on their website and they will never have to make any changes. In fact, you need to regularly update your website which means changing the SEO if you want to stay at or near the top of the search results. With so many websites competing for the same audience, you’ll need regular updates to keep up with the changes in the algorithms as well.
Images and video are an important part of SEO
Images, photos, and video have a great deal to do with SEO. Without the proper optimisation of each image, photo, or video, your SEO efforts will suffer considerably. SEO can be used in the caption to enhance it being picked up by search engines, but it is also important to size the pictures appropriately, so they do not slow the downloading process.
Video is so popular today because it increases the engagement of the viewer which means that a video which is properly targeted will have great relevance to your SEO efforts.
You have to keep on top of broken links and broken pages
Bad backlinks do not work. You are far better offer backlinking to one reputable site than having a dozen or more backlinks to bad sites. It’s not the number of backlinks, it’s the quality that matters which is one reason why Google’s algorithms have changed over the years to help ensure that only good sources will register for your SEO efforts.
There is a fine balance when it comes to keywords in your content
This is known as keyword stuffing and that trick no longer works. Today, Google algorithms are tuned to find content that is written naturally and only has 1% or perhaps 2% keyword content. Anything more than that and the algorithm identifies at as keyword stuffing which can negatively affect your SEO. Basically, if you write natural content and only use 1% keywords that will work fine. The best thing to do is hire a website content copywriter to make sure your content is as good as it can be.
By dispelling these myths, you can take the proper approach in having your SEO work properly on your website and in the content that you produce. Talk to us to find out more about SEO and what’s best for your business.