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SEO 101: 6 Steps to Search Success

SEO friendly website against a black background with leaves

Imagine that anytime someone Google searched for products or services offered by your business, your website was displayed first on the results page.

While every website owner wants a high ranking on Google, and the boost in traffic associated with a good rank, many underestimate what it actually takes to climb to the top.

SEO-friendly website builders like Zyro are helpful on your way to SEO success, but that’s only the tools you use. You also need to put in the work. 

Avoid SEO pitfalls and dominate the search results with these 6 simple steps.

Blocks spelling out SEO

What is SEO and why does it matter? 

SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization’. It refers to the process of optimizing your website so that it offers the best answer to a user’s search query. 

The better your website’s content answers a question someone needs an answer to, the better your website will rank in search results. 

SEO is about much more than ranking on Google, however. 

Google takes many things into consideration when its algorithm determines who gets the top spots in search results. 

SEO can be divided into both on-page and off-page techniques. 

On-page SEO

On-page SEO covers the content, HTML code, page layout, and linking architecture of your website.

A page has the potential to rank high if it: 

  • Offers quality content
  • Features helpful meta titles and descriptions
  • Displays no errors or broken links

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the quality and quantity of links to your website from other websites, the overall trustworthiness of your brand website, and other factors related to social media presence and your location.

To nail off-page SEO, a website should: 

  • Have other, trusted websites link back to it (called ‘backlinks’ in SEO)
  • Get respected social media networks and get influencers and affiliates to discuss their content 
  • Be around for a while

It’s important to remember that using SEO friendly tools isn’t a guaranteed shortcut to the top spot on Google. 

Good tools help to streamline aspects of your SEO but aren’t the only deciding factor of how well you’ll rank.

Achieving a high ranking takes time and it requires some work, too. 

Person typing on a laptop while sitting at a white table

6 steps to SEO success

To make a real difference to your SEO game, you have to: 

  • Know what users are searching for (known as the ‘search intent’)
  • Tailor your content around the search intent
  • Keep optimizing your content

This will all take some time, so you’d better start sooner rather than later.

It all starts with knowing your market and who you’re up against. 

Chances are you already know who sells the same or similar products as you. It still makes sense to analyze which pages and companies are ranking on top of the search results you want to rank for. 

You want to know which keywords your competitors use and don’t use, as well as the type of content they are producing. 

High-ranking competitor pages can serve as inspiration for you, too. You can even learn from their mistakes and add things your competitors didn’t include in their articles. 

2. Have your keywords on point

Using tools like Google Trends helps you understand what keywords are being used, and how many people are using them. 

While shorter and more generic keywords (think ‘high heels’) are popular, the competition will be tough. A good way to get around this is to focus on long-tailed keywords (like ‘black high heels with straps’). 

This way, you’ll get more relevant traffic to your website and have a better chance of ranking higher in the search results.  

3. Create quality content 

Now that your keywords are ready, it’s time to create content around them. 

Let’s say you’re a consultant: you could write up case studies of some interesting past projects. Not only can you highlight that you worked with a high-profile client, but you can also demonstrate how you helped them. 

As an eCommerce business, you might start a blog to discuss up-and-coming trends. Write up comparisons between different brands or explain in detail how a particular product should or could be used. 

Almost any website can benefit from in-depth articles discussing the hot topics of the field. 

You could:

  • Create blog posts related to your products or services 
  • Optimize your product pages, starting from the product descriptions  
  • Create guides or how-to series on the software you’re selling
Charts shown on a screen

4. Don’t neglect your metas 

Using keywords strategically across your pages is also an important factor for a top position on Google. 

Typically, you want to include your keywords in your meta title and in the meta description of your page.

It’s also important to make sure that the keywords are present in your headings and in the body of your content. 

Tip 💁 – Be careful not to cram too many keywords in, though, or search engines will penalize you for ‘keyword stuffing’.

Using SEO-friendly tools like Zyro helps to optimize your on-page SEO and makes the process fast and seamless.

Google considers the quality and quantity of links pointing back to your content an important factor when it comes to your SEO ranking. It shows that your website or your content is deemed relevant by other trusted websites. 

Think of it as a stamp of approval from others in your field. The more websites use your article on the top 10 small business marketing tips as their reference, the better and more relevant Google will consider your content to be. 

A good way to generate backlinks is guest posting. Consider reaching out to blogs in your field and strike a guest posting deal, or offer to sponsor a post related to your market.

6. Crawl regularly 

An error-free website is something Google takes seriously. 

You could have the best content in the world, but if your page shows a 404 error message, Google will penalize you sooner than you think.

Use tools like Google Search Console to keep track of any bad links or media that isn’t loading. Catch errors fast, and make sure to crawl through the entire website regularly.  

The many shades of SEO

As you can see, achieving the top position on Google is a result of many factors, not just the platform you use to edit and host your website. 

You need to pay attention to the content on your website, the keywords you’re using and make sure your page is free of any errors. And since SEO is an ongoing process, you need to make sure you’re aware of any new trends in your field, too.  

Top ranking doesn’t happen overnight, but the sooner you start the quicker you’ll start climbing up the ladder.

Get your website up and running in moments with Zyro, and try it for yourself!

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Written by

Author avatar

Matleena

Matleena is a seasoned eCommerce writer, with a particular interest in emerging digital marketing trends, dropshipping, and growth hacking. She’s addicted to coming up with new eCommerce business ideas and making them a reality; she deserves her nickname of ‘print on demand business mogul.' In her free time, she enjoys cups of good coffee, tends to her balcony garden, and studies Japanese.

1 replies on: SEO 101: 6 Steps to Search Success

Yulianus44

July 30, 2020, 9:53 AM

Slow but sure and clever.

Reply

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