What comes to mind when you hear the word SEO? You have seen content writers and marketers talk
about SEO probably countless times before, but can you say that you understand the depth of SEO and what it actually means? Most people think SEO is just about stuffing content with keywords. The truth is, however, SEO is much more than that.
What is SEO?
By definition, SEO is the process of optimising and promoting your content to get visibility. Say you have an article about the benefits of coconut oil, you want the search engine to show the phrase ‘benefits of coconut oil’ as a top result for everyone to see. Or else it will end up on the second page where the rest of all other similar contents are hidden.
How does SEO work?
If you want your content to rank higher on search engine results, there are three things you need to consider when creating your content.
1. Content
There is an old adage that ‘content is king’. And it’s as true as ever today. Why? Search engine users want to find results that are relevant to them. But merely churning out content is not enough. For Google to direct your content to users, it has to be evergreen content that blows the readers’ mind away. This means that you have to put in a ton of work into creating quality content.
Why does content matter so much?
According to Mediakix, there are over 440 million blogs. But that’s not all. If you consider Medium, Tumblr and other similar sites, that number is surely over a billion. This means that whatever you’re thinking of blogging about, chances are someone already beat you to it. So you want to make sure that you’re writing fresh content and taking time to create something that sets you apart from the competition.
2. Keyword Selection
A good part of SEO revolves around keyword research and selection. Keywords pretty much dictate what kind of content you write. Unfortunately, most people think that keyword selection is a one-off process. However, the best SEO involves constantly doing keyword research and reevaluating whether the keywords you’ve used in existing content are still relevant.
So how do you find keywords that are relevant and still provide enough traffic? Focus on what people are looking for. You probably have dozens of keywords in your mind when you write your content. However, not all keywords drive traffic. One way to find out how many people are searching for a particular keyword is by typing it into Ubersuggest. What you will want to look for are keywords that have a low SEO difficulty score and a high paid difficulty as they are more valuable.
3. Architecture
Once you’ve covered content and keyword selection, the third thing you need to consider is site architecture. Why? Good site architecture leads to a better user experience making your page easier to navigate. Ideally, for this to happen, you need to optimise a few things for a great search engine experience.
Mobile friendliness
According to Econsultancy, three out of five searches happen on mobile. This means that mobile is not just the future, it’s the new normal. That being said, it makes sense to keep mobile devices in mind when considering the architecture of your blog. This includes setting up mobile-friendly themes, having a mobile-friendly width, using extra spaces and compressing the number of images you use.
Page speed
Page speed is a critical factor when it comes to SEO. And the vast majority of visitors will bounce if they have to wait around for more than three seconds for your website to load. And that number increases by 113% if it takes more than seven seconds to load.
Search engines have become smarter. So while it’s important to incorporate keywords in your content, it’s all about semantics. Simply stuffing your content with keywords may hurt your rankings rather than improve them.
Good luck!