Learn About SEO
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
In the first two articles of this little traffic series, we learned how backlinks affect our website traffic generation. I’d like to reiterate that the purpose of this series isn’t to recommend any forceful methods to obtain backlinks. Due to my research and practice of this subject matter, I’ve found that maximum results may be obtained with fewer quality links than a large number of untargeted links. It’s my position that relevance to the content linked is #1. When we optimize our content for the keywords for which we’re attempting to rank, we should see that the keywords alone should demonstrate a worthwhile amount of traffic to our site.
So on that thread, today we are going to learn about SEO…
In order to learn about SEO, let’s first discover what the acronym means: Search Engine Optimization
The primary key to keep in mind when learning about SEO is keyword relevance. The more relevant our keywords are to the sites that connect to us, the more natural authority we get with the search engines. Since I have started to learn about SEO, I’ve found that with enough good quality targeted backlinks, it’s possible to outrank sites that are all ready in top spots for the same keywords.
It’s my opinion that as we learn about SEO, we should be mindful to focus primarily on keywords that have enough demand to produce predictable traffic patterns. My research into this subject suggests that the site ranked in the #1 position for a keyword on Google captures approximately 41% of the traffic.
Let’s learn about SEO as it pertains to on-page optimization…
***I will start off by stating that there are a diverse and sundry array of methods to rank keywords, but the purpose of this article is not to be exhaustive of this subject by any stretch of the imagination. So we will continue forward with a simple illustration to give you the gist of how this all comes about.***
Essentially, there are 2 kinds of SEO: On-page & Off-page. Let’s draw a contrast.
On-page SEO:
On-page optimization encompasses everything you do to help rank the webpage you’re working on. Simple, right?
Off-page SEO:
Off-page optimization covers everything you do outside of the page you’re trying to rank – this is where your backlink strategy fits into the picture.
Relevance is our KEY as we learn about SEO…remember, backlinks out of context to your keywords is not going to help you.
So let’s dig into On-page SEO. To optimize your content, you want to pepper your keyword into some specific places. Use the following list as a guide:
- Title: Never skip this, it is the single most critical area to focus around our keyword.
- Body: Be sure to include your keyword somewhere in the content’s body (preferably near the beginning).
- Tags: In blogging systems you’ll find that tags are all ready a built-in feature. All you need to do is make sure your keyword appears as a tag in that section.
- URL: Check your site’s permalink settings so that you’re using actual words separated by hyphens (e.g. www.catherine-alexandra.com/learn-about-seo/). Adjust your URL if you need to, so that your keyword is somewhere in it.
- Images: Not only does this make your content more visually appealing, but you can attach your keyword in the alt text and/or filename to add additional keyword density.
Now you have a good idea of how to On-page optimize your articles. We will learn about SEO Off-page (backlinking) essentials in the next blog article, so stay tuned!
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