No one can claim to have the perfect formula for an impeccable SEO. Positioning yourself on the Web is an art that perpetually changes; its variables are countless and publicity cost can become unrealistic.
As proof of how things can change, Google recently announced that websites secured with an SSL certificate will get extra points in their ranking. Let me take a moment for a shameless plug: Funio offers affordable SSL certificates with an automatic installation feature.
I won’t be revealing any secrets in this article today, but I’ll let you in on some too often ignored SEO basics. Take it as reminder or a place to start improving your SEO. These basics will help you find a place on the giant called the “Internet”.
Top 5 SEO Basics
1. Keywords
Keywords. Keywords. Keywords! You have to make sure you have the right keywords for search engines to catch them. You also have to make sure that these words represent what is on your website to attract the right people. These words will obviously be located in the meta tags (<head>) of your website, but also in the title of your pages and header tags (“H1”).
2. Market Study
It’s very important that you learn what are the search habits of your customers. Even if you have selected keywords that represent your business very well, it doesn’t mean that it’s what your customers are searching for. For example, if you deal in jewellery, do people search the word “jewellery” more often than necklace, ring, etc.? Is the term “necklace” in its singular form more important than the plural? Tools like Google trends will tell you that singular is used more often, and that gold necklaces are more popular than pearls.
3. “Content is King”
The more the content on your site, the more traffic you will attract. For example, if you generate weekly content on your blog, search engines will notice the flow of content you generate. However, it needs to have some quality to it and has to be well planned. There’s a sweet spot where volume meets quality, because if you only generate poor quality content, the reputation of your site will inevitably take a hit.
The trick is to focus on subjects you wish to exploit, and to create a publication calendar. A steady volume of good quality content will be your weapon of choice.
4. Technologies
First off, you have to make sure your website is well coded and optimized for search engines. WordPress is an excellent reference when it comes to optimized code; basic WordPress configurations are very search engine friendly.
Secondly, your site’s availability is very important. If your site is never available due to network issues, your ranking will be greatly affected. The loading speed of your site is also a significant variable. It’s therefore important to host your website with a trustworthy hosting provider that will ensure a reliable network and that your site is available at all times. Just like Funio!
Did you know that where your site is hosted also has an impact on your ranking? If you do business with people living in Quebec, you will have a better ranking with them if you host your site on a server located in Quebec!
5. The Trump Card
Links! If websites link to yours, search engines will notice it and improve your ranking score. Be careful! You can pay for sites to link to you, but if the reliability of these sites is poor, you are not affecting positively your ranking. You have to make sure that you get quality links that are reliable and trustworthy. For example, if a .edu or .gov site links to your site, you will notice a clear ranking improvement.
Conclusion
The SEO world is changing a lot right now. Yesterday’s tricks and good practices are starting to fail. We could even say that Google is working against us; theory goes that they want people to pay for publicity, making organic SEO more difficult.
One thing’s for sure: if you have solid foundations, chances are that your additional efforts, when it comes to obtaining a better ranking, will be less exhausting and less costly.
Good luck!
