SEO Guide for Beginners
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) doesn’t have to be scary with this SEO guide for beginners. Many guides will walk through a number of steps to take which can help optimize your website to show up on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. Those guides are great, and if you have time, you should definitely make use of them. However, a lot of small businesses are strapped for time. The question often arises: for the small business with no time and minimal knowledge of SEO, is there a shortcut to showing up on Google??
The Shortcut to SEO
While there are many “shortcuts” to SEO, it’s critical to ensure you only use strategies that are considered “white hat” approaches to SEO. Most search engine optimization can NOT be done by shortcut. (More on one approved shortcut soon…)
White Hat SEO refers to tactics that are industry best practices, supported by Google and other search engines. On the flip side, Black Hat SEO refers to optimizing a website based on tactics intended to manipulate search engines into thinking a website it more important than it is. Common examples are keyword stuffing and buying backlinks. These tactics will actually hurt search ranking. It’s possible to see gains for a short moment with Black Hat approaches. However, Google and other search engines will identify these tactics eventually as it crawls the offending pages. Once identified, the website ranking will be severely penalized for the long-term. This is why only using White Hat approaches is so critical.
So if many supposed shortcuts are Black Hat, how can a website rank on Google faster using a shortcut? It’s actually easier than it sounds. The trick is to write about what the customer is searching. All the online SEO guide tips are nothing compared to the effectiveness of quality content. Writing articles based on what the website’s users are likely to search is the fastest shortcut to ranking well on Google.
Quality Content Makes a Website Search Rank Improve
Think about the business partner connecting customers to the website: search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. These business partners help drive traffic to websites, but they also have a business to operate. They earn revenue largely through ads. Ads can only be served when their customers (people who search) come back to their platform, as opposed to a competitor. How do they ensure people keep returning? Easy: they show searchers the most relevant content. This is the content that answers the searcher’s question.
Knowing how search engines make money is critical to understanding why content is king (or queen, or whatever non-gendered royal title you may prefer…). Writing a blog, webpage, or other content that answers the questions a customer is likely to have will result in higher rankings because the content directly speaks to what a customer will search. This means search engines are likely to serve the site’s content higher in rankings because it will provide a good experience for the search engine’s customer: the searcher.
It really is that easy. Don’t waste time keyword stuffing or buying backlinks — both tactics which are shortcuts sure to lower site rankings long-term. Instead, do what (should) come easy: write about the business and the customer.
Are There Other Best Practices for SEO?
The short answer is yes. Realistically, there are a multitude of SEO best practices, and if you want to do it really well, it’s worth hiring a professional. There are also a lot of SEO guides which provide more detailed examples, such as installing plug-ins, changing writing style, and more.
Pro-Tip: One of the easiest beginner steps for search optimization is installing a plug-in, such as Yoast SEO, which will give a detailed analysis for each webpage. It also provides tips on what changes could improve ranking.
Additionally, when it comes to content creation, it’s also best practice to write about content relevant to certain themes. For instance, if a business is focused exclusively on selling dog toys, it would be a bit out of place to include articles about cat care — after all, a cat owner may not find content for a dog exclusive business to be as relevant. There are of course reasons to break this rule, but the point is: all content should exist for a reason. Ensure it stays within a set of core themes to ensure the website collectively builds credibility with search engines as the best source for content related to those overarching themes.
Ultimately, there are many factors which contribute to search performance, and if the time and expertise exists to do the extra steps provided in SEO guides online, by all means do so! However, there are no shortcuts that will beat a quality content strategy. In fact, most search optimization tactics involve adapting and strengthening existing content. Having quality content is no doubt one of the easiest paths to ranking well on search engines.
