seo-basics-2018-guide

SEO Basics for beginners to rank your website in 2018 – 22 tips

a website without seo is like a billboard in the desertWhat’s SEO and is it needed to rank your website in 2018?

Search engine optimization can be regarded as an umbrella term describing all the methods of increasing your website’s visibility and ensure the contents of the site are easily found on the search engine results pages (SERPs). It involves on-page SEO activities like technically making adjustments to the website behind the scenes to make it more visible. The other methods are the off-page promotional activities used to raise the visibility of your websites like social media marketing and link-building. Visibility, in this case, means how high your site ranks in the SERPs for certain search terms in the organic results section rather than the paid sections. Professional SEO services Miami can help you achieve very high organic SERPs to drive more traffic to your site. The paid results also form part of search engine marketing and play a significant role in generating traffic to your website.

Why you need SEO

When you build a simple yet robust site with easy navigation, search engines will index your site very fast without a struggle. This site also provides users with a pleasant experience when using it hence repeat visits. User experience is gaining importance since Google now considers it as a factor in its site ranking algorithms. SEO has played a significant role in driving traffic to sites that have employed its use indicating its importance in today’s website ranking. A study done in 2014 suggested that 64% of all traffic originated from organic searches whereas 2% came from social media, 6% from the paid searches, 12% from direct searches while the remaining 15% came from other sources. In general, between 70 to 75% of website traffic come from organic searches.
As at 2015, Google accounted for 90% of all organic traffic globally hence the need to have a strong SERPs on Google. To achieve this, professional social media management services are required to help you design a strategy that can result in increased traffic organically. Those websites that dominate the internet appear between position 1 to 5 in the SERPs on Google and account for 67.6% of all clicks with those from six to ten accounts for only 3.73%. This means your site should be found in the top five results for you to dominate Google.

Search engines look for the following:

SEO Tips Visualized1. Relevance
When a user keys in a search query, the search engine tries to look for the most relevant result to display no matter how simple the query, like “who is Ryan Gosling?” to the more complex ones like “what is the closest steak restaurant from me?” using their own unique algorithms search engines decipher your search terms and provide the results. These algorithms are designed differently to consider particular factor among them relevancy in the page and content of your website. This means your web content should be created to solve specific user problem in a specific way for it to be found by Google.

 

google wants quality content
Google doesn’t care about fancy images, they want well written, updated content.

2. Content quality
When you regularly publish useful and helpful articles, and other popular media meant for regular people not just for search engine bots then your site will rank high. Google is moving more towards content that helps a visitor rather than just keywords that lead to poor materials. Google is moving deeper towards longer-form content in its ranking. Keywords need not worry you so much, instead focus on user experience since the quality content is getting more weight in 2018 over keywords.

 

 

 

 

 

user experience for SEO3. User experience
Providing excellent user experience is a sure way to encourage more visits and a better SERPs ranking. A searchable site with internal linking relevant to the user can keep the visitor longer on your site and makes them hungry for more. Miami web design services can help you achieve this success with your current or new website making it very navigable and exciting to use.

 

page speed is important for seo4. Site speed
Search engines are becoming more interested in how fast your web pages load. Very soon Google will start labeling search results from Accelerated Mobile Page hosts. This may spell a death knell for a slow website which may not see rankings anywhere near the top 100 pages in searches due to slow loading.

 

Mobile-friendly-or-not-mobile-friendly-for-seo5. Compatibility across devices
Optimizing your website contents across all devices is an excellent way to improve your site ranking. When the site is compatible with any screen size, it is referred to ass mobile optimized, and Google is supporting the responsive designs as a preference to the non-responsive sites. With professional Miami web design services, your website will be designed in a way that both users and the search engines will like.

 

internal linking for seo
Internal linking passes power or “juice” for page to page boostering the overal power of your website and intern helps google rankings.

6. Internal Linking
To gain more trust, you need to build linkages with other relevant sites. In addition to designing an easy-to-navigate site, you need to have internal linkages can help bring more traffic and have Google trust your site more. This has advantages including:
– providing your visitors with further reading that are relevant and easy to click and follow to.
– Help improve your site ranking for specific keywords. Linking an article from other posts will tell Google that whatever content you have is helpful to users as long as you use different anchor texts.
– Helps in crawling and indexing of your site. The Google bots that are sent every so often will find your content to be helpful to users, therefore, marking your site as trustworthy the more your internal links are crawled.

 

search engine ranking factors pie chart7. Authority
When users, search engines, and other websites trust your website, it becomes and authority in the area it specializes in or in the industry. And when your site has a link from a reliable internet site, you have their vote of confidence, and the more of such links you have and the more the high-quality content you publish, the higher the chances your site will be viewed as an authority.
Things are however changing, and each year something shifts in the search algorithm Google uses and these backlinks may not be as relevant as they have been. However, it is still a good practice for improved rankings.

 

 

8. Title tags and meta descriptions
Our Miami SEO Services focus on all aspects including meta descriptions to make your website rank better in SERPs. It may not improve the rankings but will definitely increase the chances of a user clicking on your results. The Meta tags appear below the URL in the search results and can help the user to find what they are searching for.
Something under 156 characters will be enough as long as it is clear and relevant to the content and the headline. It tells the visitors and search engine that your site is the right one with the desired content in the shortest way possible. When you place keywords in the title tags and meta tags they will show up in search results highlighted, this means your site has higher chances of being clicked. Write the tags with keywords for the search engine as well are ensuring relevance to the user.

meta-description and title tags for seo 9. Schema markup
Adding schema markups to the pages HTML makes your search results appear attractive. This helps turn the search results into a vibrant media campaign with images, customer ratings, and star-ratings among other valuable information to entice the user. Schema is a straight forward method to markup for Google search engine.

what is schema markup
Above examples show how schema markup can help your listings stand out.

Use alt text to describe images10. tag images accurately
Social media packages from a good firm should include the services of tagging all your pictures and adding alt attributes as they are uploaded. Google does not see the images you upload though it reads the alt text to include. This text should, therefore, be as accurate as possible to increase the chances of the images appearing in search results. This can also help those using screen reader applications as the images have been described properly.

 

long-tern-seo-content-which-is-evergreen-content11. Evergreen content
When you publish advice based articles instead of quick win news, your site will benefit from the long-term success that drives traffic for a long time and makes the site visible in SERPs. Content that helps people solve their problems will earn you more trust and high-ranking more than the gossip or perishable news articles.

 

 

12. Domain names
Miami web design services usually advise their clients on the best and affordable ways to increase rankings. Among these is choosing the correct domain name. Using sub-directory root domains like mysite.com/category/seo for your website design is better in accessibility and overall site architecture compared to using sub-domains like category.seo.mysite. com. Also, avoid hyphenating your website domain like my-site.com. If possible, stay away from the top-level domain names such as .info, .name and .biz as they are considered spammy.
Google can closely scrutinize a domain name with keywords for quality and relevant content. Using keywords in the domain name is beneficial, but the scrutiny may result in your site being de-prioritized therefore suffer negatively. Using a site without the www prefix may lead to Google assuming that the when the user types the prefix then that means a different website. Make sure it redirects even when the user types the prefix to prevent your site visibility being compromised.

seo url optimization perma links13. Using headlines and permalinks
To ensure your headlines are completely visible in the SERPs, they should be under 55 characters in length. Snappy and attractive headlines that completely describes the contents will give you more traffic. Stay away from click baits; headlines that are so attractive but do not deliver what they promise regarding content. There are social media management services to take you through 2018 ensuring your site ranks high on the search engine results.
The URL or permalinks can always be altered even after it has been automatically set. They don’t have to match the headline and Google allow three to four keywords to be used in the permalinks with the most important one coming first. It is time you maximize on every available option to push your website to the top and dominate Google without spending much.

 

Use Comments Section in your posts14. Comments
Have your comment system turned on to encourage your community to engage and dialogue with you under each post. This is another way of creating new content for Google. It also shows that visitors care enough for the content and value the quality. Google will regard the article as helpful depending on the engagement it generates, and you can actively remove spam comments that pass through the filter and add a nofollow value to the comments that are no helpful to your article so that Google will ignore it.

 

local seo services in Miami15. Local SEO
Google is increasingly serving users as per their location especially when it comes to businesses. When you register your business locally with Google My Business, use an accurate and updated information to catch the user’s attention. Include details like opening and closing times, working days, customer reviews, contact information and the correct business category.

 

 

 

 

 

social media marketing services16. Social
Social media marketing plays a very significant role in increasing your site’s visibility in SERPs. Having social media packages that work for your website can improve significantly on the results page through these non-technical SEO methods. An effective social media strategy includes being present in all the relevant social media channels. Use the content as a customer service opportunity and interact with your audience genuinely in an entertaining yet helpful manner.

 

 

What to look out for to avoid search engine penalties on your site and wastage of resources that may not elicit any response from Google search engine ranking:

 

keyword stuffing is harmful for the website1. keyword stuffing
When you overuse keywords on your pages and article, it affects the readability, and no one knows if Google still uses keywords as a tool to rank sites.

2. Link buying
Excessive linking to sites may not earn you any benefit after all. So spending on buying links may be a waste of money. The best links are those from authority sites in your industry or niche.

3. Annoying ads
Too many ads that keep popping up when a user is reading something can be so boring. They also slow down your site speed resulting in low repeat visits.

4. Mobile App
When you present your mobile visitors with the option to download your app to read the content, then Google will not consider your site as mobile-friendly hence lower preference since Google prefers hosting from accelerated mobile pages.

5. Duplicate contents
Google will index only one page from several similar contents in different websites. Some sites scrap your site content and republish them, therefore, stealing your traffic. Ensure your content is original to contribute to your better ranking on Google SERPs.

hidden-seo-links6. Hidden links and texts
Some people hide links in a single character like a comma or hide text by using white font against a white background, positioning texts off screen or using a zero font size. These can be used to manipulate rankings but can results in Google punishing you for these tricks. SEO services Miami have all the skills and expertise to help you strategize for and develop a practical SEO plan that can be effective in 2018.

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