Search engine optimization (SEO) is essentially a term that encompasses all the methods that helps to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). Research in the last few years showed that 64% of all website visits arose from search engine results, 90% of all searches occur on Google, and 67.6% of all clicks come from the top five results from a search. Consequently, only 3.73% of clicks occur from the results from six to ten. (Ratcliff, 2016).
What does this tell us:
1. SEO is one of the most important tools you can use to increase the visibility and traffic on your website
2. a strong presence on Google SERPs is critical
3. it's critical to be one of the top 5 results in a search
Therefore, SEO should be a major concern for both web developers and for managers of blogs and page content within your organization, both during website construction and for website maintenance. Let's face it. If search engines do not see your site, your web traffic will suffer as a result.How do we do this?
Some of the responsibility of SEO lies on the web designer, while some things occur in website management and therefore may lie on the shoulders of those that place content on the website, such as posts, events, articles, page content, etc. As mentioned above, 90% of all searches occur on the Google search engine, so it is extremely important that we look at Google's criteria for what is shown on their SERPs. Unfortunately, Google uses complex algorithms to determine these results, and the criteria is ever-changing or not revealed. With that said, there are still some tried and true things that can be done to increase website visibility.Practices that provide SEO and increase visibility
- Relevancy- SERPs try to provide the most relevant results.
- Quality of your content- Does your website regularly publish useful articles, videos, or other types of media?
- User experience- Does your website produce a positive user experience?
- Site speed- How fast do your web pages load?
- Cross-device compatibility- Does your website have a responsive design that works well on any screen size or device?
- Internal linking- Do you utilize internal linking on your website? It provides further reading options, it helps to improve your ranking for certain keywords, and it helps Google crawl and index your site.
- Authority- Is your website trusted and respected by the users and the industry?
- Meta descriptions and title tags- Is your meta description succinct (under 156 characters), clear, and relevant? Are your title tags clear, concise, and accurate?
- Schema markup- Do you have rich markup in your website content?
- Properly tagged images- Do your images have an alt attribute, which increases their visibility to Google?
- Evergreen content- Does your website have quality, informative content that last over time? Is it written to be relevant to the reader, but also has SEO in mind? Do readers spend time in the content?
- Domain names- Does your site utilize sub-directory root domains instead of subdomains? Does your site structure avoid hyphens?
- Headlines and permalinks- Are your headlines rich, attractive, descriptive, and under 55 characters? Do your permalinks contain key words and do they come first?
- Comments- Is there a place on your website for comments which demonstrates a thriving community?
- Local SEO- Are you registered with Google My Business, and is your information up-to-date?
- Social- Do you have a social media presence, and are you friendly and helpful?
What are some practices that search engines view as negative behavior?
- Keyword stuffing- Do you overuse keywords?
- Link buying or excessive link exchanging- Are your links appropriate within your niche?
- Mobile app interstitials- Do you have a full-screen advertisement to download your app?
- Duplicated content- Do you have duplicated content on your site?
- Hidden text and links- Do you have hidden text or links on your site?