In comparison to the title tag, a meta description gives users more understanding of what your webpage is about. You can also use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs to search for keywords. Once you choose the keywords, you can go ahead and start optimizing your pages for those keywords. You can learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by enrolling in comprehensive SEO courses, reading industry blogs, and practicing with real-world projects.
SEM allows you to capture traffic from the high-visibility paid spots while also working to rank for more specific, less competitive variations of the keyword. In simple terms, when you search for something online, search engines sift through their index to find relevant pages. They then use algorithms to rank these pages, placing the most relevant and high-quality results at the top of the SERP.
If you link to another company in your post, shoot them a quick email or tweet after publishing it and ask for a share. If they share it over their social profiles, their posts can send more traffic your way. This will restore the flow of link juice, giving your pages an instant boost that can help to improve how they rank in search.
- And by organic, we mean only traffic generated from search engines (excluding social media, paid advertising, etc.).
- I found it a bit surprising that Manta doesn’t offer reputation or social media management.
- And even getting mentioned on social media platforms like LinkedIn or X (Twitter) can cause a lift in your rankings.
- Compare that to social media, where your posts lose traction over time.
The basics of search engine optimization
Google supports various ways that lets you opt out of crawling and indexing of your URLs. If you need to block some files, directories, or even your whole site from Google Search, check out our guide about ways to prevent content from appearing in search results. Use these insights to identify your top-performing pages, keywords, content, and areas that need improvement. Use data visualization tools like Google Data Studio, Tableau, or Looker to build interactive dashboards highlighting key metrics, trends, and insights. Optimizing website images can improve load times, accessibility, and search visibility.
How long until I see impact in search results?
For this reason, you need to post content that brings value to your potential customers. Besides including high-performing keywords, you’ll also want to educate readers about a topic or solve their problem. Google changed the algorithm to measure whether or not your blog is providing value. Crawlers also tend to visit popular websites that create new content more frequently than smaller unknown websites. That’s why you should consistently post new content on your site.
This is one reason why “…near me” is one of the most used phrases in search engines. The lesson moves from identifying the signs of popularity to creating link-worthy content. You will also learn how to utilize offline relationships to leverage your position as an organization. The lesson concludes with the link building tactics to avoid when you need to build a robust relationship with your customers. The Off-page Optimisation lesson elaborates on the processes to further improve your ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These include important Link Building strategies such as high-quality content and off-site engagement.
How quickly (or slowly) your site loads has a direct impact on your Google rankings. H2 headings should include your keyword and be used to organize major themes, while H3s and H4s are for introducing smaller concepts. It can be entertaining or emotional as long as it fits with the research you’ve done. This page on my site is optimized around the keyword “Channel Description”. Semrush did a massive Featured Snippet study (they analyzed a SEO Anomaly whopping 80 million keywords). Publishing high-quality content is one of the most important SEO tips.
After all, deleting content you worked hard to create probably goes against your instincts. Simply type in your URL and allow the tool access to your Google Analytics. Usually, when it comes to publishing evergreen content, the writer has to update the posts occasionally. You could also use Google Search Console to see when multiple pages rank for the exact keywords. Sometimes it’s due to confusing site navigation, misleading headlines or links, excessive ads, or even simple mistakes where visitors click on a link or button by accident.
Your focus here can be the Organic Search channel since the percentage of users that arrive via this channel will give you a pretty good idea of how effective your SEO efforts have been. We have found that the videos we include, together with structured data, often perform well in Google’s video results, particularly for keywords we also rank well for in Google Search. Our theory is that the combination of the mass amount of traffic and social signals causes Google to deem these posts as very relevant, therefore bumping them up in the SERPs. Many SEO specialists will debate this, but we have seen this happen firsthand quite a few times. When it comes to the images you include in your posts, you may also want to consider enabling large image use for Google Discover. Statistics show that this leads to increased CTR, page view duration, and user satisfaction.
