28/02/2023
What is search engine optimization?
Any time you Google something, Google's algorithm works to choose stories and posts that will answer your question. SEO is all about understanding those algorithms. That way, when someone Googles something that applies to your website or blog, they won't have to dig through several pages of results to find yours. It'll be right at the top.
How much does being ranked highly on Google really matter?
You might think that using social media is the best way to get your blog or website seen. I don't want to discount them. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the rest can be powerful tools to help you build a following.
But, there are two great parts about being ranked highly on Google search results:
Google is the most-trafficked website in the world. Even getting a fraction of Google's traffic is significant for your website.
Optimized content can stay in the top spot for as long as it's relevant. A Facebook post shows up in a feed for a couple of hours. One tweet might be skipped over. But a top-ranked Google post can last for months or even years. For example, I wrote my "How to Start a Business" post in October, and it's No. 1 eight months later. You just can't get that on social media. Even if you use a pinned post, you only get one. There's no limit on how many top-ranked Google articles you can write.
So, now we know what SEO is and why it's important. But, how do we actually optimize our content? How do we make online content that appears on the first page of Google, Bing, and other search engines?
1. Before you write your post, make sure your site is optimized.
Search engines care about more than just the words on the page. They also take into account factors including the quality and consistency of your site's speed and authority. There are tons of other factors that go into website SEO, but let's break down these two.
Speed
There are a ton of reasons why you should want your website to run as fast as possible. Web users are notoriously impatient, and they're liable to leave your website -- maybe forever -- if it takes just two seconds to load. At the same time, improving website speed can lead to an increase in conversions, downloads, and views.
Entrepreneur contributor Thomas Smale has two great strategies you can use to improve your website's speed.
The first is to optimize your images. He writes, "Research shows that, on average, more than half of a website's memory load is taken up by images. One of the easiest ways to improve your page load times is to optimize all your images for the web."
Odds are, you can probably make your image files much smaller without sacrificing quality. For example, there's no need to upload a 5,000 pixel-by-5,000-pixel image into a box that's only 500 pixels square. That image is 100 times bigger than it needs to be, and it could be the difference between a fast loading site and a slow one.
You should also think about the density of your image. Most computer screens only show images at 72 pixels per inch (ppi), which means that anything clearer than that is wasted, like watching a high-definition Blu-ray movie on an old TV.
So, even if your image is a 500 pixel square, you should check the ppi to make sure it is set at 72. Often, images are set at 300 ppi, which makes your image file four times larger than it needs to be without improving the quality.
Smale's second suggestion is to optimize for mobile. He writes, "Users now spend, on average, 69 percent of their media time on smartphones. Yet many commercial websites still perform poorly on mobile. This is something that businesses cannot afford."
There are all sorts of things you can do to improve your mobile performance. For example, if you are building your own website, you could implement mobile pages to simplify your mobile pages and speed things up.
If you are using one of the popular web-hosting sites for your website, you should check to see how that host performs on mobile. For example, you may find that Duda, WordPress, Wix, Weebly, or another service performs better with your content. Each one will be a little different, so do your own research.
2. While writing your post, you should have a keyword or search term in mind.
Google isn't going to magically rank your website in the top 10 just because you write a post. You have to help search engines out by predicting what people will search for to find your story. For example, let's say I write an article for Entrepreneur about what kids need to run their own lemonade stand.
If I were writing the headline of an article about lemonade stands for a print newspaper, I might try to write a funny or punny title, such as (bear with me on these):
How to Be Beyonce and "Lemonade"
Lemonaid: Helpful Tips for Running Your Summer Stand
Sugar, Water, and Lemons: A Perfect Recipe
And if someone read my article in a print newspaper, they might see a picture of a lemonade stand or read a little of the story and figure out what it's about.
But no one on the internet is searching for terms like "Lemonaid" or "Sugar, Water, and Lemons." They might search for "How to Be Beyonce," but they're not going to want a story about lemonade stands as an answer.
If you are writing an article for the web, then it's important to be clear. Here are some better SEO headlines for an article on how to run a lemonade stand:
How to Run a Lemonade Stand
Tips on Running a Lemonade Checklist.
What Ingredients Do You Need to Run a Lemonade Stan Checklist. list.
These titles are more straightforward, and they mirror the way a potential user would search for information on lemonade stands. That's important.
The key search term in each of my titles is "Run a Lemonade Stand," because I want people to find my article when they search for information on running a lemonade stand. When picking your own keyword, you should try to think about how people would search for the information you're offering.
3. After writing your post, you have to share it.
And you need to get other people to share it, too.
It's pretty simple: If people share your article, it means they think other people should see it. Isn't that the whole point of a search engine -- pointing people to the posts, websites and information they should see?
In the same way that you might be more likely to buy a product or service after someone recommends it, Google and other search engines are more likely to commit to your page after others have shared it.
You need to use social media to start that conversation, so others can recommend your post. To do that, you can use one of two strategies:
Rely on your own social network.
Rely on a partner's social network.
Ideally, you'd be able to do both of those at the same time. For example, Entrepreneur Associate Editor Lydia Belanger interviewed Alisha Marie in an article called, "What This YouTube Star With 7.3 Million Subscribers Is Doing to Deal With Burnout."
Belanger shared the story on her Twitter account, which already has 4,500 followers, which is a good start. But then, the article got more firepower behind it when it was shared by Entrepreneur's official Twitter and Facebook accounts, which have about 3.4 million followers each. Plus, Marie put the article in an Instagram story, tapping into her 3.7 million followers.
By tapping into all of those sources, Belanger's story was shared by accounts with more than 10 million combined followers.
One of the best ways to earn traffic is to improve your site's search engine optimization. Ranking in the first page of a search ebelieversngine results page (SERP) can bring literally millions of people to your website. You can then use that traffic to sell ads, write sponsored posts or even create a thriving online store.
To optimize your content, you need to first understand that SEO starts with the construction of your website. Work with a developer or research what Google and other search engines expect from your website, then do what you can to make sure they get it. Focus on making your website as fast as you can. Over time, you should try to build up your authority on topics that are essential to your website.
Next, you need to write a post that targets a specific keyword or search term. Make sure you use that keyword in the headline, as well as throughout the article. You should use related links and internal links that reference your website and inform Google what the article is about. At the same time, make sure you are writing something that informs the reader and doesn't just target Google's algorithm.
Last, you need to create an online conversation about your piece through social media. Use partnerships as well as your own platforms to create a buzz around your website that even Google can't ignore.
If you can do those three things, you can create top-ranked articles and put the power of Google in the palm of your hand.
