If you’re new to search engine optimization, or even if you’ve been doing it for a while, it can be hard to determine where to get started. There are hundreds of things you can learn about SEO, from the technical aspects of on-page and off-page optimization to keyword research and link building to content creation and promotion strategies to paid advertising and marketing. So how do you know where to start? Here are five ways you can learn about search engine optimization so that you can improve your rankings and get more traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and others.
1. Understand Your Audience
If you’re trying to learn SEO, understanding your audience is key. For example, those who are searching for how to learn SEO are going to be different from those who are searching for SEO best practices.
A successful search campaign (driving traffic to your website) is going to be unique and should address your specific business goals as well as your audience’s needs and wants.
2. Start With The Basics
If you’re just getting started with search engine optimization, it’s important to consider mobile optimization as well. Google is making huge strides when it comes to its mobile search capabilities, so if you aren’t yet taking advantage of these changes, you might be missing out on some easy and free traffic opportunities.
One of Google’s major breakthroughs is that it now understands local businesses much better than before. If you don’t make yourself visible to mobile users in your area who are searching for local services like yours, you could miss out on a massive opportunity for traffic and new customers.
Here are some additional tips from Google to help increase your rankings and exposure in mobile searches
3. Focus On Mobile Optimization
In 2016, most traffic from search engines will be from mobile devices, according to a recent study.
This means it’s crucial to focus on optimizing your website for mobile users as well as desktop ones. This can mean updating your site’s design to make the text easier to read and elements more prominent on smaller screens, or it could mean improving its performance so that pages load quickly on all devices.
Either way, it’s important. If you haven’t optimized your site for mobile users yet, now is definitely a good time to start! Read blogs like Search Engine Land and Smashing Magazine for more tips and resources.
4. Avoid Over-Optimization
Doing things like stuffing keywords into content or links, or writing for search engines instead of people can damage your rankings. When in doubt, use common sense and err on the side of being more human-readable than machine-readable.
Similarly, don’t engage in spammy activities to boost your rankings, like buying backlinks from sketchy sources. A good rule of thumb is that if it’s not natural (sharing content on Twitter or Facebook), it’s probably not organic enough to help you with your search engine rankings and might even get you penalized by Google in some way.
5. Get Your Website Reviewed By An Expert
Hiring a professional SEO consultant to analyze your website and tell you where you stand will set you back at least $1,000. If that’s out of reach, hire a friend or family member to review your site and offer suggestions on how to improve its search-engine appeal.
Pay close attention to the types of keywords they recommend using in blog posts, product descriptions, and so forth. Invest in new hosting: It’s expensive – starting around $50 per month but the results can be worth it.
You’ll need to find a web host that uses caching technology (basically keeping content stored on servers) so when someone searches for your company’s name, they’ll get a faster response from the server than if they had been directed elsewhere because the site was down or not loading quickly enough.
Lastly, remember that different search engines have different ways of ranking sites; focus some time on optimizing for specific engines like Google by including keywords and phrases in page titles and headings as well as the content.
Conclusion
If you’ve been working on your business for a while, chances are you’ve already heard about SEO. If not, let me break it down for you: it’s short for search engine optimization.
It means optimizing your website to rank higher in Google and other search engines.
This is important because many people still find websites through search engines instead of social media.
So if you want your business to grow, you should learn how to do SEO and how to use it on your site. With that said, here are five ways you can learn more about SEO so that your website gets more traffic.
