What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – SEO is the process of organically increasing the quality and quantity of traffic from search engines to a website or a web page. The main principle of SEO is to ensure that the website appears at the top of the search results.
I have shared brief information about search engine algorithm and keyword research in my previous blog posts. Now we will briefly go over all the processes involved in SEO.
TECHNICAL SEO
Add the site’s domain to Google Search Console tool
Google Search Console is a tool created by Google that allows you to optimize the visibility of websites in search engines. GSC indexes websites and enables Google to recognize those pages and show them to users during searches.
Add the site to Google Analytics tool
Google Analytics is a tool created by Google that helps to learn website traffic and user behavior on websites.
Create SITEMAP and ROBOTS.TXT files
SITEMAP is a file, where all pages are in one place. It is possible to create this file with SITEMAP Generator tools and upload it to Google Search Console.
ROBOTS.TXT (Robots Exclusion Protocol) file tells search engine crawlers which URLs the crawler can access on your site. This file can easily be created with text programs.
Example:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: https://sabinazakirova.com/sitemap_index.xml
Google Search Console
At this stage with Google Search Console, we can index all the pages of the site. As a result, without having to wait for a long time, Google is already “aware” of the site. Additionally, it is possible to see the number of clicks from search engines to the site, impressions, CTR (click-through-rate), average ranking, searched keywords, errors, etc.
Optimize URL structure
The readability of the links is very important for both users and search engines. Therefore, these tools recommend that the URL structure should follow the following pattern:
Media optimization
Images, videos, and files are always affect site speed. Optimizing them for SEO has a positive impact on speed and search rankings.
Add Structured Data
Schema Markup is code that helps search engines understand your content and better represent it in search results. The content on the site might be a blog post, news, company, person, place, product. Schema codes are used to inform the search engine about spesific topic to display more accurate results for user.
The following site can be used to generate Schema Markup code: https://technicalseo.com/tools/schema-markup-generator/
HTTPS protocol
HTTPS (Secure Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is a protocol that shows how information transferred from the server to the user. When you want to connect to a website, HTTP takes your request, forwards it to the server, and allows you to access the site. The difference with HTTPS protocol is that it means that the site is more secure and user data never shared to anyone.
Search engines only display HTTPS protocol – security certified sites in search results.
Increasing site speed and mobile-friendliness
Next factors affecting the search ranking is the site speed and mobile-friendliness. You can test these indicators with the following tools:
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Detect duplicate pages and broken links
In order for search engines not to redirect to wrong pages, it is necessary to eliminate duplicate pages and broken links (broken links, 404 error, etc.) on the website.
ON-PAGE SEO
Competitor research
Competing with sites that targeting the same audience and offering similar or same products/services should be researched well. For example:
• What keywords are they using?
• What kind of content do they share?
• What keywords are they showing up for and what are they doing for this?
• What about their rankings?
• How are the pages structured?
• How are the technical indicators (site speed, compatibility with mobile format) ?
and etc.
Define the main keyword
Regardless of the service or product offered, every website always has one main keyword. Other keywords are mainly formed based on this word.
Keyword research
Keyword Research is the stage where the keywords that we will use in the content of the website are researched and ranked. I will share more detailed information about this in the next posts.
Write Title & Meta Description with keywords
At this stage, we determine with which title and description the website should appear in the search results. It is important to the use keywords that related to product or service when preparing these texts. If you want to know in advance how the site will look in search results before sharing the changes, you can use the preview tool below.
https://www.portent.com/serp-preview-tool/
Internal Linking
An internal linking is a linking between pages of your website. It means sending a link from one page to another page on the same website.
Content creation
After researching keywords that are suitable for products and services, next step is content creation. The key point here is to create structured and understandable content that will be more useful to users instead of using too many keywords everywhere. Also, keywords should be added to images and videos (image alt).
Constantly updating content and making sure that the information is the latest
It is possible that the information in the blog post you shared years or months ago is no longer correct and has been changed. The content on the site should be updated over time and should not misinform users. One of the important ranking factors in SEO for Google is that the information is being “fresh” and relevant to today.
OFF-PAGE SEO
Backlinks
It is important to get backlinks from other websites with high ranking to increase domain authority and ranking on the website.
A backlink is when other sites link to your site. This means more traffic and rankings. In addition to other sites, it is possible to link from social networks.
In addition to all these processes, the statistics of the site must be constantly monitored and adjusted.