Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique to improve the ranking and search presence of an article, page, or blog post on Google or other search engines.
Why is search engine optimization important?
SEO is more relevant than any factor. It's still one of the most popular digital marketing strategies that drive long-term results. Organize your website keywords to improve search rankings and to drive more traffic on your website.
Website Speed Optimization
Website speed optimization is the process of reducing website loading time. It involves the optimization of code, images and other elements that affect website speed.
Moreover, it involves
- reducing the size of the files
- improving server response time, and
- improving caching techniques.
Here are some of the benefits of improving or optimizing the speed of a website:
- Drives organic traffic if it is a valid and relevant content.
- Increases the engagement on the website.
- Reduce the bounce rate
- Improve conversion rate
What will you learn about SEO in this blog post?
In this blog post, we'll show you the top 10 SEO key ranking factors for developing a post on a website or a page. We'll add the required and relevant SEO tags and other basic search presence checklist and limitations. Let's start by improving the web page for better Search Engine Results Page (SERP) results.
Before making any SEO changes to your blog post or page. Is it necessary for you to find what the world is looking for?
Do you know about the Google Trend Service?
Google Trends is a free service offered by tech giant Google that provides accurate information about trends in any region, country and across the world. With Google Trends you can check real-time trending search keywords and topics. It will list the most popular keywords in any category you want along with their search volume and how they have changed over time. You can also filter the results by date, region, and language.
- To find out what's trending in the United States, visit the following URL: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
- In a similar way you can also find what's trending in United Kingdom with the following URL: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=UK
- For India: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=IN
To make content appear in Google or Bing search results you need to find a keyword with low competition and create content for that keyword.
- Find a keyword people search for related to your website or blog.
- Find the terms people are commonly looking for and select the keywords for which you want to write content.
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are vital for search engine optimization. These tools allow you to submit your website to search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. They provide insights into any potential issues these search engines might encounter while indexing or crawling your website pages. By using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, you can monitor your website’s performance in search results and identify the keywords driving the most traffic.
Important Tip:
To enhance the visibility of a website’s URLs on search engines such as Google and Bing, it’s crucial to follow two key steps. First, maintain an up-to-date sitemap of your website and submit it regularly to both Google Search Console and Bing. Second, whenever there are new URLs added, existing URLs updated, or old URLs deleted, make sure to inform Google and Bing by submitting these URLs. Following these practices will ensure efficient discovery of your website’s URLs by search engines.
SEO for Google and Bing (One Solution)
Ranking on Google and Bing is a major factor in getting organic traffic for your website or blog. To rank on Google, you should add and implement the following factors on your website if you want to rank on Google.
1. Title Tag:
Meta Title is also called Title Tag. Add a relevant site title by doing keyword research. When doing SEO keyword research, you shouldn't pick high traffic and high competition keywords and also the that people are likely to search for when looking for information on search engines.
Title tag Limitations and Checklist:
- Title length should be at least 40 characters long and should not exceed 60 characters long.
- Use a targeted Long Tail Keyword in the beginning of the title.
- Use action verbs to encourage people to click on the link.
- Run a spell check.
- Most importantly use keywords that are relevant to the content of the post.
Meta title tag syntax:
<title>Add a Long Tail Title of 40-60 Characters long</title>
Example: "SEO Key Ranking Factors for Google and Bing"
2. Meta Description Tag:
Add long-tail keywords about your site, article, portfolio or landing page along with a meaningful description that is at least 120 - 150 characters long.
Meta Description tag Limitations and Checklist:
- Description length should be at least 120 characters long and it should not exceed 150 characters.
- Description should consist of targeted primary keywords and content relevant keywords that people are likely to search.
- Do not use the same word more than 3 times.
- Always use catchy sentences in the description.
- Run a spell and grammar check.
Meta description tag syntax:
<meta name="description" content="add your page meta description here" />
3. Canonical Tag:
Canonical URLs are used to identify the original copy of data for search engines. Defining a Canonical URL will prevent duplicate content issues on your websites or blogs. This indicates search engines crawl the selected page version. Use Google Search Console Tool to verify the page's Canonical URL. Add your Home Page/Blog Page URL to the Canonical Tag.
Canonical tag syntax:
<link rel="canonical" href="<add_your_site_page_url_here>" />
4. Meta Keywords:
Add at least 4 - 5 relevant keywords and relevant sentences in meta keyword tag for better search presence.
Meta Keywords Syntax:
<meta name='keywords' content="<add_relevant_keywords_here_seperated by ," />
5. Meta Viewport Tag:
meta viewport tag help client users to support all devices sizes responsively.
Meta Viewport Syntax:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" />
6. Heading Tags:
HTML headings are titles or subtitles that you want to display on a webpage. These headings are defined with the <h1> to <h6> tags. <h1> defines the most important heading. <h6> defines the least important heading.
Use page heading tags in proper structure starting with <H1> to <H6> tags in HTML body content and also add unique and quality content to get more visibility in search engines. Add unique and quality content headings to get more visibility in search engines.
7. Optimize images for web and add alt attribute, title tag and descriptive file name for good Images search results:
The required alt attribute for the <img> tag specifies an alternate text for an image, if the image for some reason cannot be displayed. This can be due to slow connection, or an error in the src attribute, or if the user uses a screen reader.
Optimize your site images to .webp - If you have JPG or PNG then convert those images to .webp format to optimize the page speed. Add Image Alt Tags and Image Title Tags to all the Images on your Website Page.
<img loading="lazy" src="<image_name>.webp" alt="<add_image_text_here>" title="<add_short_image_text_here>" />
8. Schema Structure:
With Schema Structured Data you can have an organized data or information about the website that which makes it easier for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo,...,etc. to crawl the page content.
9. Meta Robots Tags:
Meta robots tags commonly known as robots tags. These robots meta tags instruct the search engines how to crawl or index web pages of your site or blog.
Meta Robots Tags Syntax:
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />
10. Submit Sitemap:
Submit Sitemap in Search Console and Bing Webmaster to crawl and index your site pages on Google, Bing, Yahoo and on other search engines.
11. Internal linking:
Internal linking helps Google crawl and index your website more effectively. Make sure to link to relevant pages on your website from each page.
12. Backlinks (External Linking):
Backlinks from other websites are a sign of authority to Google. Try to get backlinks from high-quality websites that are relevant to your niche. This will improve site ranking.
SEO Bonus Tips
- Optimize content for your users: add proper vavigation with the page by using Id tags.
- Your website connection should serve over a secure transfer protocol (https)
- Update search agents in Robots.txt to allow and disallow site pages with instructions like what to crawl and what should not.
- Add Favicon to your site.
- Minify the Code - Reduce the Styles and Animations if not necessary. You can minify CSS, JavaScript by using Cloudflare DNS setup or any other CDN service.
- Test your Website Page using Page Speed Insight Tool to resolve your site errors and also to serve for better performance.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for faster load speed, to serve images and to store your website cache for faster response.
How to measure and optimize your website for SEO Ranking?
You can't optimize your site unless you measure your site. There are many different strategies to promote your blog content and you might be using a few strategies to promote your blog content. But how do you know what is working best for your blog?
It's extremely important to know what's working best for you. You can do more of what's working and less of what's not working to maximize your time and efforts.
- You can use free Google Analytics tool to measure and optimize your efforts.
- Create your own social media sharing schedule and promote your blog using Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Groups, Instagram account, Pinterest, LinkedIn Groups, etc.
- Find trending topics in your own blog niche and use the topic relevant keywords to write engaging content and to increase organic traffic for your blog.