Have you ever came across the term SEO? Have you ever wondered how SEO works?
For example, consider one of your friend is a well-known website holder and you have newly created a website. You ask him to add or mention your website link on his home-page or on his blog-post. By doing so, his viewers will also check your website. Not just that, Google will also take a min to consider your website knowing the fact that a well-known website holder has mentioned your website link. Maybe it is worth the fame.
If yes then, I should say, you are at the right place and at the right time. Today, I am going to speak about SEO in detail and how you can learn SEO at home.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
In layman's language, if you have a website and you wish to increase traffic in a legit way, than SEO is something that you should know.
There are different ways to promote your website.
1. By using social media - Do you think, sharing your content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest can give you enough traffic?
2. By paid promotions - Paid promotions or Advertisements can be an extremely expensive way of increasing traffic. Middle class start-ups will not be able to afford it.
3. Organic search - Here's where SEO comes into picture. SEO is a legit way of increasing traffic to your website not only with quantity but also with quality.
How does SEO work?
Imagine you want to search for some information on the internet. You will of-course go on 'Google or Yahoo' (this is called as Search Engine) and you will search for whatever you want to. For example, you want to know about travel blogging. So, in the google search you will type - 'Travel Blogging or What is Travel Blogging' (here the Keyword is "travel blogging")
Once you press enter, Google will generate a list for you based on your keyword. The first four links are the ones which are generally clicked and the ones which has good quantity of traffic.
For example: I typed "Travel Blogging" on Google search and the first website I found is "y travel"
How can you list your website at 'number one' on Google search?
The first thing you need to do when you start a website is, Log-in to "Google Webmasters" and register your website. This is a way to let Google know that you have created a website which provides XYZ service or sells a XYZ product.
There are thousands of websites created on daily basis. Of-course, not every website can get the limelight. However, there are certain things you can do to make your website number one on a particular keyword.
Google has a particular algorithm on which it works. None of us can actually crack this. (The day somebody cracks it, I am sure Google will be totally messed up) Google hence keeps changing its algorithm the moment it feels somebody is trying to crack it or understand it.
The most important thing you should know and I suppose you know already is that, there is a lot of competition on Google. Not every website gets an opportunity to stay at 'number one' forever.
So, coming back to our topic - How can I rank my website at 'number one' on Google search? There are two ways how you can rank your website. On-page SEO & Off-page SEO
Let's begin by understanding what On-page SEO means.
- On-page SEO looks at what your website or your web-page is about.
1. Finding Keyword
The first step towards ranking your website on Google search is, finding a 'Keyword' on which you want to rank your website.
- On Google Search, type a word based on your Niche. I typed "Travel" and I found many search options like 'travel bloggers, traveling, travel advisory India, travel quotes etc'. These are "Keywords". When you type 'Enter', Google will provide you a list of all the
websites with the same keyword.
Further down the page, you will find some more search options like 'traveling topics, travel guides, traveling benefits, travel blog etc' All these are "Keywords".
- Find out which 'Keyword' has the maximum
number of searches.
Based on this result, you may want to choose one particular 'Keyword'
2. Work on Meta Tags
The content your on website plays a very important role from SEO's point of view.
- Your website URL or blog-post URL must have the same 'Keyword' you had selected.
- The title and description of your blog-post must also have the same 'Keyword'
For Google to consider your 'Keyword' you need to fix your Title tag, Description tag and Keyword tag through HTML coding.
3. Improve your website
- First, you need to check, "Is your website http or https". If your website is under 'http', you must change it to 'https'.
- Second, you must check how much is the "load time" of your website. This plays a vital role. If there are excessive coding, your website will be heavy and will not load and Google will not be able to list your website under that 'Keyword'
- Third, another important thing is to find out if there are any "error pages or broken links" on your website. Google will consider that you have removed these web pages which will eventually lower your rank on Google.
- Fourth, "Bounce back rate". For example, after clicking on your web page, if the viewer returns back or closes the tab within few seconds it is considered as 'bounce back'
Google will monitor this 'bounce back rate' and will consider that your website doesn't have a good content due to which many viewers are not willing to surf for long on your website.
In-order to avoid this, make sure to have a very presentable content on your website with no excessive advertisements. A lot of advertisements can sometimes be irritating for the viewers. Also, if the website takes a lot of time to load, your viewers will simply exit and go to another web-page.
- Fifth, "Click through rate" This defines the number of viewers clicking on your web-page. Now, this depends on how catchy your title and description is. Even if you are at number nine on the list and viewers still tend to click on your web-page and surf through, Google will consider that your website provides the most suitable information as compared to the others on that particular keyword and yes, your ranking will automatically increase.
- Off-page SEO looks at how authoritative or accurate and popular your website is.
Back links - This is when a well-known website mentions your website link in theirs.
Most of the people are following this method of increasing traffic.
Now the question is, How can you ask someone to mention your website link on their website.
First, you can email them saying, you will write a blog for them and in return they will have to mention your website link.
Second you can mention your link in the comment section of that blog-post.
The third way and the most convenient way of getting back links is, create accounts on free blogging platforms like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and write articles or blogs on your niche and mention your website link in that blog-post.
These were some major things every website owner does in-order to increase the ranking of his website and get to "number one" on Google search however, I am not stating that by following these methods your website will be at 'number one'. When you follow these methods practically, you will be able to see the results by which you will realize which method works for you and which doesn't.
If you wish to learn more about SEO, Google provides a free assistance for everyone called as "Google Console" Don't forget to register yourself and read more about how Google works and how you can increase the ranking of your website.
I hope this article was useful for you and if you have any questions related to SEO, you can definitely leave a message in the comment section down below and I will be happy to answer them.
Michelle Pascal Dsouza
Asst Manager of Content Writing
AirCrews Aviation Pvt Ltd
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