Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basics

In the rest of the text, we will answer the question of why site optimization for search engines is important and what to do to fulfill the basic optimization for internet search engines or search engine optimization (SEO).

Visitors will come to your site when they find the page in the search results, through a link from another site, or if you have created a paid advertising campaign. You've probably wondered how to make your site the first in search results or how to be the first on Google. We understand that a significant amount of money is needed to ensure that you get traffic to your site through a paid campaign or advertisement. Search engine optimization should enable better ranking and better visibility on search engines, which will increase the number of visits that are not the result of an advertising campaign, but natural or so-called organic visits and natural arrival on the site.

Benefits of good site optimization:

- Reducing advertising costs.
- New visitors will arrive through search engines even when you don't have an active advertising campaign.
- While you have an active advertising campaign, a large part of the visits will certainly come through search engines thanks to optimization.
- Many visitors avoid clicking on ads or watching ads, so they will most likely go to one of the pages that are on the first page of the search and that are not paid ads.
- More site visits mean better sales of your products.

Disadvantages:

- It takes time for the results to be visible.

Optimization is a process, it takes a certain amount of time for Internet browsers such as Google, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and others to see changes and improve the visibility of pages in search.

- Basic optimization is sufficient in many cases, while serious projects require the engagement of a specialist who is exclusively engaged in optimizing sites for search engines (SEO - Search Engine Optimization).

How do I optimize my site for search engines?

Now we will list certain items that are very important when optimizing a site. These items should be filled and adjusted by the developer or designer when creating the site, it is not enough for the site to be created and exist, it needs to be as visible as possible in search engines, which requires at least basic optimization. SEO can involve a lot of ranking factors that require be studied for many years, I will now list some of the most important ones.

1. Page title

The page title is very important. It is the title that will be displayed in the search results when your page is found during a search.

Besides the title <title> tag, it is a very important <h1> tag that is in the content of the page itself and is usually at the very beginning (top) of the page because it should essentially describe the content of the page, as well as the page title itself.

2. The address of the page, i.e. link to the page

Pay attention to the page address. Which address seems better to you:

- https://vavok.net/blog/ab1122935
- https://vavok.net/blog/seo-basics-and-where-to-start-with-seo

You will agree that the second address is a much better choice for the page address, it describes what is on the page and contains the keywords that are important to the page and page ranking in search results.

3. Content quality

When the content of the page is of high quality and the visitor gets the answers to the questions he was looking for or finds the product he was looking for, internet search engines will know how to appreciate that. It would not be appropriate for a visitor to come to your page and immediately return to the search engine, search further and go to another page, this indicates that your content is not of sufficient quality. Write content so that it is useful to the visitor.

When describing a product on your online store, write the description according to the product you offer. If the page is about table lamps, write a detailed description of the product so the visitor knows what it is, and add pictures of the product so they know exactly what to expect when ordering. On this page where a table lamp is a product you want to sell, the visitor does not expect a description of a floor lamp or any other, but a description of the lamp he was looking for and for which he came.

Do not copy texts that have already been published somewhere, it is very unlikely that such a page will be interesting to the search engine and that it will rank well, maybe even it will not be displayed in the search.

It is very important that with the quality content you will increase the chances of getting links to your page from other sites. For example, someone will post a link to your page on the site so you will have a backlink. When someone places a link on their site to your site, the content of your pages must be relevant, that is, if your page is about airplanes, the site that links to you should also be about airplanes or similar topics. It would be strange to a search engine if someone on a page talking about, say, blinds linked to a page about airplanes. Yes, they are that smart.

4. Keywords

Be sure to include keywords in the text. In case it is an article about blinds, you must mention blinds. By using keywords you help the internet browser to understand what the page is about, thus it will be easier for him to offer your page in search results based on keywords. You can make some of the keywords in the text bold and emphasize the importance of that word to the visitor and internet browser.

One of the most important "tricks" is to create a page with keywords that do not have a lot of competition in the search. For example, the keyword "washing machines" may already have a lot of competition, that is, many pages that are optimized for that keyword, then it will take you a long time to "break out" above them in the search results, or there is no point in doing it, but it is better to choose a keyword where there is not much competition, say "washing machines Albany New York". Figure out your strategy and keywords that might be good, write down those keywords and create and optimize page content accordingly.

5. Site loading speed

When a potential visitor clicks on a link to your site and waits more than one second for the page to load, they will likely give up and go to another page, and if they have to wait three seconds, they are probably already on another page.

If a visitor comes via an internet search engine such as Google, Yandex, Yahoo, or another, clicks on a link and waits for it to load, abandons your site while waiting page to load, this can be a negative factor for the ranking of the page, which we have already described in step 3. Content quality.

Keep in mind that after any changes on the site, it may take days, weeks, or even months for the internet search engines to see it and how those changes would affect the ranking of the site or the page where you made the changes.

Persistence pays off and the search engines will reward it, congratulations if you have completed all the steps listed in this text, you have done a lot for your site.

Of course, there are many more factors for ranking and very often factors change, new ones are added, some are dropped, at some point some gain more importance for ranking, while others lose importance and it is constantly changing, that is why it is important to do the best possible optimization.

If search engine optimization is of interest to you, I'm sure you'll continue to learn and use many other optimization techniques.