Published: 09/05/2023 by Tamara Edgar
We talk about SEO a lot on Proven Insights, however, most of our blogs were targeted to intermediate level and professionals who are already familiar with the basics of SEO. The reason for this is that there are so many guides for beginners and they are all good and informative. But I think it will be good to talk about the very basics of SEO, go back to the beginning and take a step by step tour through this beautiful world of numbers, stats and metrics.
SEO is a very complex job, so I will be posting a series of different blogs for each aspect of it, so welcome to Proven's first SEO 101! In this article, I will be focusing on a general overview and the very basics of SEO.
Short for Search Engine Optimization, SEO is combined activities that make search engines like Google, Bing and others see your website in the better light, count it more credible and serve it in the top of SERP (Search Engine Result Page.)
It is the strange combination of tech and marketing mixed together and slowly steamed in a rich soup of confusing terms. But do not fear, it’s not as scary as it seems and Proven is here to support you all the way through your SEO journey. Even if you hire other people to do the SEO for you, you still need to make sure that you understand the job they are doing for you.
No matter if you are a small local business drawing sales mainly from your actual store visitors, or an online e-commerce platform, you will need SEO. People are just too used to searching everything online first. 80% of shoppers first check the product online - this is how important SEO is. It is the ultimate way to market your product and when done correctly, can save you a lot of money. I never view SEO as an expense, yes you will have to pay a professional to implement it and there might be some other expenses too, but this is an investment, that will come back when your website is easily found.
As we said above it is very complex. I like to view it as a puzzle that comes together when all the aspects of SEO fit correctly.
The first and the basic one will be your website health. Google doesn’t like unhealthy or broken websites and it will not serve you on the top of the SERP results. The trick is that your website can look absolutely fine to a bear eye, but for the bots, it might look damaged. This is why good site health audit is the most essential part before you start any works on your website.
A good in-depth keyword research is another one to start with. You need to make sure that the keywords you can rank organically are identified and well supported, so when running a search campaign, you are only paying for keywords you would not rank otherwise. Next, you should run a backlink audit - to see which websites link to your site and how good these links are.
I understand that the above does not give examples and as a newbie in the SEO world, you probably want to get more in-depth information about how to run keyword research or what the site audit actually includes. Bear with me, we will be discussing each in details in our SEO 101 series to help you understand what SEO is all about.
So to sum up, you need to look at your websites health, backlink profile and keywords, but remember that this is only the very first steps you take. This is the information you need for analysis to decide where you are going to next. Once you’ve done the analysis you can then map out the route and know what can you expect.
If you are looking for a company that can boost your visibility online, drop us a line and we will be happy to help. And, if you are an SEO enthusiast, please, feel free to ask questions in the comments and let us know what topics you find interesting.
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