What are some SEO tips for beginners?

Posted on by Lani Haque

Below is my understanding, so far, of some tips to help a website’s SEO. 

Long tail keywords.

keywords that are actually phrases of 3 – 5 words, or even longer.  These are the phrases or questions that get typed into search boxes when a person is searching for something.

Choose the “right” domain. 

Try not to use a long domain name.  try to use the main keyword of your “industry”.  Try to include your business name or area of expertise.  You want the name to make sense with what you are offering.

Unique titles and descriptions. 

Write unique and relevant titles for pages and blog posts and unique and relevant descriptions for the page or blog post.  Try to include the keyword for the page or post into your title and description.

Mobile friendly. 

You want a mobile friendly website because more and more people are using their phones for browsing and searching the internet.  Everyone is always on the go and so not by a computer.

Local SEO. 

If you have a local business then using local SEO is a must.  This means putting your business on Google My Business and filling in your profile.  Now your business can be found when searching on Google maps.  Another way to optimizing local SEO is to sign up on as many local directories as possible. https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/03/local-seo-how-google-can-boost-your-foot-traffic/

Descriptions for images. 

Give a written description for all the images on your pages or on your blog posts.  Make the description relevant to the theme or keyword of your page.  Include the keyword for that page or blog post in you’re the description of your image.   The reason for this is Google and other search engines can’t see images the way you and I do so providing a written description is the only way the search engine knows what it’s “looking” at.  Think of it as a video description of your website for the visually impaired, in this case, your search engine.

Valuable content. 

Have valuable content on your site.  Your site is more than just a few pages describing what your do and your offer.  Offer valuable and relevant content on your site about what your do, your industry and related information.  The more valuable content you have, the more search engines will see your site as a resource and reward your site by bumping it up higher during relevant searches.    One really good way to add valuable content is through a blog.  The FAQ’s is also a great way to provide valuable content. 

Backlinks. 

What’s a backlink?  It took me awhile to understand what a backlink was but it is a link back to your site from another site.  The internet is one big graph made up of a set of vertices and edges, in particular directed edges.  That means that each edge is an arrow point from one vertex to the next.  Each vertex represents a  piece of content or an asset on the internet. This may be a website, a blog post, a webpage, a social media post, a video, you get the idea.  An edge between these vertices, points or assets on the internet are links, so a website link linking to that particular vertex or asset.  For example, if you have a blog post and you put a link to another site in that blog post, that is a link out from the blog post and can be depicted as an arrow leaving the blog post and pointing towards that page that you’re linking to.  That’s an outward link.  Now, if another external vertex, asset aka webpage has a link to your website, this is again a link, depicted by an arrow from that external webpage back to your website.  This kind of link is called a backlink.  These are the types of links that you want in order to help your SEO.  Now, the quality of the website backlinking to your site plays a role in the resulting SEO value, but that is another topic related to suggested methods to acquire backlinks.

Consistency. 

Maintain consistency with your efforts. Whether that be creating valuable content, reaching out for backlinks for quality websites, refining your site structure, updating your sitemap to search engines and everything else listed above.  Check the analytics of your site and it’s pages from time to time to see how you’re doing.  Google analytics is good for this.  https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/05/how-to-use-google-analytics/

SEO isn’t a one time thing.  As the sophistication of search engines improves, so will the SEO tactics have to as well.  It is a marathon and ever continuing process to work on, improve and maintain a website ranking on a search engine. 

References:

  1. 12 SEO Tips to Boost your Wix Website, Oct 2017,  Wix Blog, URL: https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/10/12-seo-tips-boost-wix-website/
  2. Submitting your sitemap directly to google, Wix Help Center, URL: https://support.wix.com/en/article/submitting-your-sitemap-directly-to-google
  3. Local SEO: How google can boost your foot traffic, March 2017, Wix Blog, URL: https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/03/local-seo-how-google-can-boost-your-foot-traffic/
  4. Technical SEO Fundamentals, Technical SEO: The Definitive Guide, Backlinko, URL: https://backlinko.com/technical-seo-guide
  5. How to use google Analytics: Introduction guide for beginners, June 2020, Wix Blog, URL: https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/05/how-to-use-google-analytics/
Lani Haque
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Lani Haque

I enjoy learning and sharing that knowledge. Sharing has been in many forms over the years, as a teaching assistant, university lecturer, Pilates instructor, math tutor and just sharing with friends and family. Throughout, summarizing what I have learnt in words has always been there and continues to through blog posts, articles, video and the ever growing forms of content out there!

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