Search engine optimization (SEO) has changed significantly since the dawn of the web and even in the past 10 years. Where you might have previously learnt to bombard your page with keywords or to post backlinks to your site from anywhere you possibly can, search engines have become too sophisticated in their algorithms for these basic tricks to work anymore. SEO in the modern day is about making genuine improvements to your website in such a way that search engines can detect that it brings clear value to its viewers. Even though Google is an immense company, they still compete with Bing and other search engines; it is important to remember that SEO is as much for them as it is for you—they want to do everything in their power to deliver their users a good experience so they get an edge over their competition. This has become a fundamental of SEO: understand that you are involved in a symbiotic relationship that revolves around providing value and good experiences. What follows are more fundamentals that you should be aware of.
Content
The phrase ‘Content is King’ has quickly become both a cliché and a motto to live by in the SEO world. People use the internet to access information; much of this information is to solve specific problems, while other information is used by people who are interested and who have a few moments to kill. In both cases, individuals are satisfied by high-quality content that provides them with some meaningful solution to their interest or problem. This is for you to provide; but don’t just provide this for anybody as you’ll be competing against every site on the web. You need to identify who your main clients, customers, or desired visitors are, and then develop a detailed portfolio of their demographics, their interests, their hobbies—simply anything you can find evidence for. Then you should tailor your content to be useful to the people you have identified in detail.
So, what content should you post? You can post anything that you feel provides value to people. That might be a blog post—this is the most common form of content used by SEO professionals, but it might also be an infographic, an explainer video, a podcast—you name it (if you need inspiration here are some examples). If your demographic can consume the information easily and obtain value from it, you are on the right track. Keep in mind that you want to be generating backlinks, so make sure that your content displays your expertise in such a way that others will want to link back to your page. Maybe this means explaining a complicated problem with a new metaphor that simplifies it, or maybe it means going out, conducting surveys, or doing tests and presenting original information or statistics that people will refer to. Originality is therefore a crucial part of content creation, as it will enhance the value that is gained from visiting your site and will increase the number of people that link back to your site in order to aid their own explanations and content efforts.
The Importance of Backlinks
Search engines use a tremendous amount of data to decide who they place on the search engine results page, and it’s a fiercely competitive domain. As Google can’t visit each website they place on their results pages, they have evolved other ways of determining the quality of the content. Well, it’s not a perfect way to look at it, but if lots of people are referring to your page it must mean you’re on the right track. That’s the essence of SEO backlinking. However, when people first realized this, they found a clever loophole: placing their links all over the web, squeezing it in as many nooks and crannies as they could find. Search engines realized that this was a problem and changed their algorithm accordingly. The effectiveness of the links back to your site depends on both the quantity and the quality of the links: if there are a million links to your page all posted on bizarre imageboards or comment sections of university websites across the web, search engines might become suspicious. However, if authoritative and relevant sources link back to your content—sources that are already viewed as trusted—Google will view your content as providing actual value and prioritize your site on the search engine results page.
Backlinks and people talking about your site are also great for creating impressions on potential customers. If you are mentioned in several places across the web that your particular niche visits, you will start to acquire more sales and make more progress. Why? To quote SEO experts lbmsllc.com:
“Marketing Is All About Perception. If your company is ‘seen’ everywhere; if people keep coming across your name; the perception is ‘You must be the best!’ When that happens, instead of doing more research or calling more companies, your prospects stop. They‘ve found the company they want to work with.”
The Importance of Amplification
Once you have created content that will provide value for users of search engines, you shouldn’t just relax and wait for the backlinks to roll in. Part of effective SEO is using multiple channels to amplify your efforts. You should have social media profiles that you are highly active on, as algorithms monitor this. Are you unsure as to how you can be highly active on social media? The answer has already been provided to you: promote your content like mad. Engage with people on social media and try to create a discourse about your content; openly invite people to ask questions (maybe have a Q&A); start a conversation with other experts in your niche about the information you provide in your latest content. The opportunities are vast and you should be creative and use them to the best of your ability.
This, as well as content creation, comes with a low price tag, but you might have spotted that effectively managing SEO can take a lot of time. This is why SEO can be DIY, but it should never be classified as free. It is hard work and graft, you pay for success with time. If your time is limited, or if you’re a complete beginner, it might be worth supplementing your efforts with professional help for two reasons; you will save time, but also this will help you to avoid the costs involved at the start of the experience curve. No matter how much you research, you will not be as efficient as a seasoned pro. Use this to bootstrap your SEO and learn about the process as you also implement your own efforts. This way, you’re paying not just for SEO, but for a lesson in an all-important topic from a seasoned professional.
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