Have you missed out the step by step process to optimize a website? Do not get messed up. As a beginner what should be the preliminary points to be considered while going for optimization of any website or what techniques you should follow if your website is less than 1 year old and you have to make a fresh start.

But

WHAT IS SEO??

Let’s begin….. Search Engine Optimization can be very well explained as it is the process of optimizing the visibility of a website/web page in a search engine’s unpaid results for a certain keyword, but the first 5 of GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS gets 67% of all clicks, so you can’t afford to ignore SEO.

Everything cannot be done altogether and while starting up SEO for your personal or professional website, you should list out your day to day, weekly and monthly goals. As a beginner, you can’t consider advanced level optimization goals, but you can’t even ignore the DYNAMIC GOOGLE ALGORITHM.

Then, you can focus on the TWO BROAD CATEGORIES OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION that are ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION & OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION. Get FREE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO SEO

WATCH VIDEO|SEO|GOOGLE ALGORITHM| STRATEGIES|NEW UPDATE

# 1 UNDERSTAND GOOGLE ALGORITHM

If you are optimizing a website for GOOGLE, firstly you should be aware of the components which GOOGLE CONSIDERS FOR WEBSITE RANKING and then go for ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION AND OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION Strategies.

 Due to the immense increase of mobile users across the globe, In November 2016, Google announced that it is going to consider “MOBILE FIRST” SYSTEM OF INDEXING.  Now you should know what “MOBILE FIRST” system of indexing is and how it will affect your digital marketing strategies.  Until November 2016, Google was using the desktop version of websites as primary sources and mobile version was of secondary importance. Google will be using mobile web pages as primary and desktop pages as secondary sources. Moving towards speedy change, Is your company/brand “Mobile First” ready???

Impact of “MOBILE FIRST” System of Indexing

As more than 50% of web searches are on mobile devices, so it becomes mandatory to make your strategy mobile-centric and while designing it should be considered that the website should be mobile-friendly, responsive, content should be same on both desktop and mobile sites, develop an app to make it user-friendly. Don’t leave any space for the Google Search Engine to lower your brand’s ranking.

Google Update 2018

# 2 ON PAGE SEO AND OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

If you are designing and developing a new website or revamping an existing one, follow SEO GUIDELINES  to make the website SEO FRIENDLY. While optimizing any website for search engines, rectify the technical aspects. The crux of on page and off page optimization strategies is:

# Tags & Titles

In-depth keyword analysis for writing Title and use keywords in H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 TAGS appropriately.

# Meta Description

Meta Descriptions should be well defined for each page and should be a brief summary.

# Great Content

Just good content won’t be enough; you need great content to drive traffic.

# Images

Optimize, compress & rename the images as per keywords and fill ALT Tags for images.

# Mobile Friendliness

Web pages should be touch responsive, mobile friendly & must have Call to Action.

# Validity

All Pages should have embedded with social media buttons & pages should be W3c Valid.

# Coding Hierarchy

Take care of coding hierarchy & mention comment for each page while coding.

# Loading Speed

Check the loading time of the website with Pingdom Website Speed Test & if bad, rectify the issues as soon as possible.

# Broken Links

Rectify broken links on the website and URL link should be as per SEO parameters.

# JavaScript

Minify all JavaScript.

# 301, 404 & Canonical Tags

Take care of 301 Redirect URL for new links to redirect old pages to new pages and there should be 404 error pages for non-existing content search. Besides this, take care of Canonical Tags wherever required.

# Hosting Account

Choose a good hosting account, the server should be responsive.

# Robot.txt & Sitemap.xml

Check Robot.txt & Sitemap.xml existence.

# Text/HTML Ratio

Check out Keyword density, keyword proximity, and Text/HTML ratio. Improve them, if required.

# Schema Markup

Implement Schema Markup for search engines to crawl your content in an organized manner and display it correctly.

# No Follow & No Index

Use no follow and no index directives carefully in your website.

# Trust Flow and Citation Flow

Check the Trust Flow and Citation flow of the website and improve them as per requirement.

# Major Off Page Criteria

Check Domain Authority, Page Authority, Page Rank, Social Sharing, Link Juice, and Anchor text.

# Avoid Black Hat Strategies

If you are interested to go a long way and want great results, follow WHITE HAT STRATEGIES instead of BLACK HAT STRATEGIES.

# Uniformity of Keywords

Good Keyword Analysis brings Great SEO RESULTS. It is not the only consideration, but a major player in SEO as complete web pages are full of content, images, tags, and titles.  With qualitative content, the right usage of keywords throughout the pages will slowly and steadily improve the web page rank.

You can use the Google Keyword Planner, Alexa Competitor Keyword Matric and Keywords Difficulty Tools in SEO TOOLS of ALEXA. GOOGLE ADWORDS KEYWORD PLANNER is free as you sign up for Google AdWords while signing up for 7 days advance trial plan of Alexa site, will give the full insight of competitors’ keywords.

This will simplify your job to start, but deactivate your advance plan when your trial period ends. Other tools for keyword research are KwFinder, LongTailPro, SEMrush, Moz Keyword Research Tool.

# Blog, a Must in SEO

Blogging is the best way to drive genuine traffic to your website as Blog is mandatory when it comes to Search Engine Optimization.  You should do in-depth research on topics with respect to your web page content and try to read a lot on competitors site to know what blog exactly works and how to blog in the best manner to drive traffic. Build an authentic image among subscribers and visitors.

# Earn Good Backlink/Inbound Links

You need to work hard to get good backlinks (Inbound Links) and try to get backlinks from high domain authority websites from a relevant field which increases the quality votes for your website.

# Local SEO for Your BRAND

As a beginner, you should register your brand with Google My Business and other local search engines to get better visibility. Add your business name & address on important pages of your website like the home page and contact us page.

# Outbound links & Internal Links

Create only relevant outbound links that relate to your content and create proper internal links throughout the website for user friendliness that provides easy navigation for both users and search engines.

# 3  DO NOT MISS THE SEO TOOLS

As a beginner, you need to use SEO tools for tracking results. Few of the chrome extensions are Alexa Traffic rank, Woorank & Alexa Rank.

Use Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Semrush, Kissmetrics and Ahrefs for regular tracking of your website status. Write to Tarannum Khan at digitaltarannum@gmail.com.

Do share your views & connect to my Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn accounts.

Tarannum Khan is a passionate and proactive Marketer, Blogger, Author, Educationist, and Speaker who has more than 6 years of experience in the field of digital marketing. She derives simple solutions for complex goals. She has Proficiency in SEO, Designing & Animation software for promotional campaigns and has Edge over Google AdWords, Affiliate Marketing, Content Marketing, SMM, SMO, and Blogging.