Sometimes I will have people come into my office with a great concept and understanding of what SEO is, and sometimes I will get customers that have old-school SEO knowledge of something they heard from a friend of a friend or some person at a dinner party.
In the easiest form of understanding, SEO is the practice of attributes on, and off of, your website that contributes to ranking your website on Google Search Results.
Think of Google as the world's largest online library, when you add a website, like a book, that site needs to be added to the library based on a lot of content, and your site structure is much like a book structure with a title, chapters (secondary headers) and content.
Old school ideas of SEO were 'keyword stuffing' or the practice of saying what your website is about at least 7 times on a page, mentioning your location multiple times and making sure your URL has what you do in the domain name (ie: www.thissiteisaboutdogs.com). While some people use these, these are considered old ideas and are not nearly as effective as they used to be and may even hurt your search results.
There are also 'black hat techniques which are a definite NO!
Annually (and sometimes more frequently) Google will send out their updates list of items of SEO that are important, gaining importance or losing weight in the ranking.
There are 4 basic types of SEO:
On-Page: on your website, or in the back end of your website that includes site structure, meta description, title, headings, image tags, content (writing good content for the user) and linking.
Off-page: These are items off of your website that you may not have control over but you can help to influence. These include gathering Google reviews, when people search your business/brand/items and interact with your social media (as an example) and backlinking (high-quality websites that link to yours).
Local SEO: This helps those near you. By having your local address on your website it helps your site show up to the local market, other local SEO includes having a Google My Business page.
Technical SEO: This is one of the most challenging aspects because a lot of this is highly technical. This included your page speed (how quickly your website shows up) ensuring you correct ay site errors, having a site map and ensuring the basics are also met - mobile responsive and secure websites.
It's important to note that a new website does not rank right away, it takes time for Google to index it.
Once your website is live and indexed with Google, you should continue to update your site, modify your site to ensure you meet the latest algorithms, and send people to your website, all of this will further contribute to ongoing SEO success.
If you would like to learn more, I would be happy to help.
Julie Boake
Awedity Creative Inc.