I will show you what kind of things you shouldn’t miss if you want a better SEO. Don’t expect too much after one day or a week. SEO process is like a lifetime challenge. The world of SEO is constantly changing, so you must follow and study constantly. If you had the possibility it is always a good choice to hire a professional.

It doesn’t matters is it Google, Bing or Yahoo etc. your target where you want better ranking, but keep in mind, nowadays Google had the biggest traffic between the search engines. First define your clear goals, check all the Webmaster tools for SEO what you can find, they can really help you. Do not focus your traffic only on Google, use all the way you can make it. I think on other search engines and on social networks, too.

SEO is divided into two or three major categories:

  1. On The Page SEO
  2. Off The Page SEO (first two categories people call white SEO methods)
  3. Black SEO methods

On The Page SEO factors:

    1. Unique, accurate title and meta tags – page content titles are displayed in the search results, add keywords which are relevant to your content
    2. Keywords in the meta description tag – It might be the very first impression about your page for the users, write it in descriptive way, not too long, but it should contain valuable information about the page content
SEO guide
SEO keyword searching match

SEO keyword searching match

    1. Use of the Heading Tags (at least H1 and H2) with proper keywords – create a site which have attractive design (you can’t smell it, but give him a nice outfit)
    2. Don’t forget to add the alt tag to the images – if you see an image, you can talk about that, help the search engines, they don’t have human eye, they need the proper alt tag for the images
    3. URL structure – use descriptive keywords in the URL, it is easier to remember then some long, not understandable code
    4. Offer quality content and services – update your content frequently, write blog, engage your visitors with your articles, don’t allow being just another site from the search engine, do not sacrifice the quality with quantity, also pay attention to have fresh articles
    5. Do researches, maybe you haven’t found and added all the keywords you should, check these tools: Keyword Planner, Word tracker, Keyword difficulty,
    6. Topic targeting – don’t focus to have only five to ten keywords, create your content around a particular topic
    7. Make your page Search Engine friendly – you will need three or four sitemaps, one for the search engines and one for the users (the crawlers or spiders will discover easier your site if they have help – XML sitemap),a mobile sitemap and you can make an image sitemap
    8. Robot.txt – Clearly define which parts of the page should be displayed and which not (nofollow, noindex, noarchive, noODP) Check Google’s help for robots.txt – Google’s support page
    9. Make your site with easy navigation – do not create too many sub-directories, make it simple

Confusing navigation

Is it confusing for you?
 

  1. Mobile site optimization – lately it was collected a good attention, don’t miss this part, more than 40% from traffic is made by mobile devices
  2. Site speed – if you don’t need to fill your page with heavy content, you can create a speed site, people are impatient nowadays, don’t allow to get board of the loading process
  3. Use of the Canonical Tag – you need only one version of the page to be available, choose do you want the www or the non-www version (rel="canonical")

Off Page SEO

  1. Link out to Authority sites also links from Authority sites – if you have good links on the page, it will be respected, if links from other sites are leading to your page, it will be more respected
  2. Write descriptive Anchor text to the links – lead the users to the proper destination
  3. Trust – by that I mean the trust of your domain, the trust of your page content, the trust of the links on your site, trust that Google have for you (domain history and registration length, country extension)
  4. Social side – do the users have the possibility to share your page, do the respected ones sharing your content, do your friends sharing and talking about your site, you never know who can be a good support for you with his/her sharing

If even after these steps you don’t get better rankings, you did something wrong:

  • You did overdo it – don’t make over optimizing steps (e.g. you need proper keywords, but don’t fill every little corner and sentence with them)
  • You were used some methods, which are not welcome (black SEO methods)

Read this article about the possible penalties: Possible penalties

I don’t recommend using any of the black SEO methods, soon or later you will get caught and you will earn only “black” points. The search engines have harsh methods against it.

Here are also some useful articles:
Google’s SEO guide, Neil Patel

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