Nowadays, Search Engine Optimization is one of the most widely talked about topics. Most businesses mainly focus on this topic because this is one of the best digital marketing methods to bring organic and targeted visitors to the website. This article will serve as a beginner’s guide to Search Engine Optimization and will talk about the following points:

1)What is Search Engine Optimization.

2)How to perform Search Engine Optimization on your website 

3)Benefits of Search Engine Optimization. 

 Let’s start to discover what is Search Engine Optimization and why it is essential?

What is SEO?

 SEO simply stands for Search engine optimization. Nowadays internet has become a significant part of our lives. Most internet users solve their problems by simply Googling them. For example, what do you do if you want to find the best dentist in your area? You merely google the “best dentist near me.” Then by looking at the google reviews and numerous other factors, you might narrow down your search to three or four options and call the places. So, you can see if someone needs to find any solution from the internet, their first choice is to use a web browser.

Meaning if you have a business or product, if an internet user can’t find it by searching in their preferred web browser, it’s almost as your business or product doesn’t exist in the digital space at all. So, Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing your website/web page so that it gets listed high up in web browsers ensuring your visibility in the digital space. I want to make you even familiar with SEO with a few screenshots. As I am a big fan of Google, let me use the Google search engine for this demonstration. 

I believe you already have experience with Googling something. Once you search on Google, you will see three different results on your screen. Those are. 

•   Google AdWords results 
•   Local SEO results 
•   Organic SEO results 

Let’s clarify these using screenshots, and I will explain them briefly. It will help you understand the terms if you are unfamiliar with them.

• Google AdWords results 

Google AdWords is an official advertising system that Google owns. Using SEM, you can bring your website to the top of the results (Search engine marketing – Adwords). But you need to pay for this. Many companies spend money on Google Adwords, yielding more remarkable results than those who don’t.  

• Local SEO results

Google introduced Google My business in June 2014. The whole concept increased local search engine visibility. In addition, it helped locals to find out reliable product suppliers and service providers. For example, suppose your business is on Google My Business. This means now you can rank your website and business details in the local SEO results section. Nowadays, many companies and internet users benefit immensely from this concept. 

• Organic SEO results 

Due to its benefits, many companies are trying to bring their websites on top of search engines organically. I will explain it later in this article. This ranking is called organic ranking results. 

So, these are the three kinds of results that appear on your screen once you search on Google. But if you search on Bing, Safari, Yandex, or any other search engine, these results could be different. Therefore, as you are a business or service provider, it is better to focus on SEO because it brings precious benefits to your business. 

 Now you know what SEO is. Next, you need to know about the different web browsers available. Because to do SEO, you need to identify the set of browsers you are going to optimize your website/web page for. I have listed down here some of the most popular web browsers in the present day.

Image and data Source gs.statcounter.com

According to the above graph and many other data sources, Google Chrome is currently the leading web browser with 64.06% of the market share. Then comes Apple’s Safari browser with 19.22%. At the same time, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla’s Firefox are the following two most used web browsers with an approximate 4% share each. 

• Google
• Safari
• Edge
• Firefox

 Let me guide you on optimizing your website for google search engines.  

We will give you the basic steps to follow to rank your website at the top of the Google results page with good SEO practices. Following are some of the SEO practices you can undertake. 

• Publishing high-quality contents
• Contents should be provided for humans, not for search engine robots
• Minimum bounce rate
• Good user experience

How to take your website’s ranking up on search engines?

Search engine ranking is not an easy task because there are a lot of companies trying to rank their websites for the same keyword. Therefore, there is a big competition in the market. In addition, search engines consider different ranking factors to rank websites; for example, Google considers more than 200 ranking factors to rank a website. Today, we will not discuss all those ranking factors. However, we will discuss the most important ones. All right, we can divide SEO into four main categories. 

• On-page SEO
• Technical SEO
• Off-page SEO
• Local SEO

 Let’s discuss the above factors briefly.

On-page SEO

 On-page optimization is taking care of what is inside of the website. It includes elements such as,

• Title
• Meta description
• Headers
• Inbound linking profile
• Image alt tags
• Url structures
• Maintaining high-quality content inside of the website etc.

And on-page optimization is the process of optimizing the on-page elements of a web page to rank top of search engine results pages (SERPs). It is crucial for both SEO and conversion rates. It can help increase your rankings and improve your conversion rate by improving your website’s visibility, relevancy, and user experience. 

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is a subset of SEO that focuses on the technical aspect. This is about ensuring that your website is technically sound and does not have any issues that might be preventing it from ranking well in search engines.

Technical SEO optimization practices are critical when optimizing your website for search engines. These are some of the most common approaches:

• Website loading speed
• SSL certificate
• Site map
• Robots.txt
• Mobile-friendliness
• Three code error management
• Device compatibility Etc
• Quality of the contents
• Fix broken links on the website etc.

 Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is a technique that involves the promotion of a website or web page through various tasks. These activities may include social media marketing, article marketing, link building, etc. It is imperative when ranking a website on google. 

Why?

We can control making awareness about the website on social media, but the most challenging part is backlink building. The backlinking process should be clean and clear, which means if you are creating backlinks in an unethical way, that could affect your

• Website reputation
• Ranking
• Domain authority

 Therefore, in off-page optimization, you need to consider many sensitive factors for building a backlink profile. 

Local SEO

 Local SEO optimization ensures that your website ranks well in the local search engine results. So how to do Local SEO? Follow the three steps below. 

• Make sure that you have a Google My Business account and verify it.
• Create a Google My Business listing with accurate information about your business.
• Optimize your website for local search engines by adding location information, contact details, opening hours, etc. 

Now you have a basic idea about Search Engine Optimization and how it works. Ranking on Google is not an easy task, but fortunately, it is not impossible with good SEO practices. So let me simplify what you need to do to rank your website on Google. 

• Do proper keyword research and focus on low, competitive longtail keyword opportunities.
• Create unique content.
• Try to provide solutions for problems.
• Make your website easy to navigate. Don’t use complex website interfaces.
• Always try to keep your website user friendly
• Website speed is critical. No one wants to waste their valuable time.
• Always focus on relevant backlinks.
• Don’t try backlink services.
• Always get backlinks from high-authority websites.
• Ask your customers to add reviews on your Google my business page.
• Do a monthly simple SEO audit
• Analyze your backlink profile and always stay alert about spammy backlinks.

 Why Is Search Engine Optimization Important for Your Business?

 Nowadays, digital marketing plays a significant role in every industry. Most companies are on their way to giving up traditional marketing methods. Many companies spend a lot of money on SEM (Search engine marketing) to bring targeted visitors to their websites. Most Companies expect leads, conversions, or brand awareness with SEM. Usually, Search Engine Optimization takes time, but most businesses get a lot of benefits using SEO, such as:

• SEO brings organic traffic to your website
• SEO builds up the online reliability of your brand
• Businesses can understand the preferences of customers
• SEO increases the user experience
• SEO brings targeted traffic to your website
• Increase organic conversions and leads
• SEO increases brand awareness. Etc.

 Search engine optimization is a powerful way to build brand reputation, brand awareness, conversions, and leads. Unfortunately, all these factors are precious and expensive, which means most companies are spending a lot of money to get these. With Search Engine Optimization, you can get these benefits freely.