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There are many ways to improve your website’s visibility, but one of the most important is search engine optimization (SEO). There are many ways to come about executing SEO for your business.

In this blog post, I’ll break down how search engines work and how simple SEO basics really are.

With a better understanding of how SEO works, you can start implementing some of these techniques on your own website and improve your ranking on search engines.

How Search Engines Work

Credit: Boat Marketing Pros

Quite simply, search engines are robots/algorithms/machines that display the most relevant information to the searcher’s queries. They primarily have three functions:

1. Crawling – the process of reading every web page’s content
2. Indexing – analyzing and organizing relevant websites found during the crawling phase
3. Ranking – displaying information/website in order of relevancy as a search result

During these three primary functions, what will set your website aside from others will be ‘relevancy’ and ‘authority.’

• Relevancy is when the content matches the search query (that’s where keywords step in)
• Authority is basically the credibility of your website

This pretty much sums up the basic process of search engines. Let’s now review what SEO is and how it works.

What is SEO and How Does SEO Work?

SEO stands for search engine optimization and in a nutshell, it is the process of optimizing your website functionality and/or content so that search engines will find it a suitable fit for search queries.

There are more than 200 factors that can affect your ranking on Google. Let’s not get overwhelmed by the number and focus on some of the basic factors that if you start working on today.

On-Site SEO

• Title Tags
  Each individual page on your website has a title tag that should ideally be less than 70 characters long with the main keyword(s) in it.
• Meta Descriptions
  Similar to title tags, meta descriptions can stretch from 150 to 160 characters giving some details about the specific content on the web page or maybe a teaser sort to encourage more clicks.
• Keyword Research
  Make sure to do your homework before using keywords. Apart from the sophisticated platforms, I highly recommend putting yourself in your user’s shoes and searching for the query you wish to answer. Look at the end of the search result page you’ll find related search queries; that’s a good place to start.
• Internal Links
  External links are super helpful as other websites are basically quoting your content, but it is crucial to focus on internal link building as well.
• Header Tags
  H1, H2, H3, etc. font size of headings is simply your header tags. The H1 tag is the title of your post, and H2 and H3 are subheadings and subsequent subheadings. Header tags are a great way to make your content more readable and even search engines prefer such formats.

The Benefits of SEO

There’s an endless list of the ways how SEO can be beneficial for your business. Here are the top 5 reasons as to why I think you should consider working on your website’s SEO:

• Gain visibility. Did you know that 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines?
• Organic SEO is proven to bring better quality leads.
• Builds trust that further gives you more authority to maintain your ranking.
• It’s an investment worth all your time and effort. You might find it tedious at times but if done right you’ll see all your hard work will pay off for itself as years go by.
• Far more sustainable. Paid Ads are great (momentarily) but it’s SEO that will keep you afloat for a long time.

The Future of SEO

Content is king! Yes, the functionality of your website will play a vital role as well but the way you will present your content is what will make you stand out from the crowd.

I hope this short blog post helped and boosted your confidence to work on your website’s SEO.

Give it a good six months at least to see the results. Stay motivated and stay consistent!

Need assistance coming up with an SEO plan? Feel free to book a free consultation session or contact me on (888) 928-4587 for more information.