A Rookie’s Introduction to SEO
By Ayushi Mona
Happy 2022!
Yes, Priyanka, Chandhni, Rahul and I have been MIA for a while but we’re back and will continue to regularly write weekly tidbits on MarFketing.
You’ve probably read my guide on getting copy right as a marketer.
Most of my content on this publication tends to be narrative-driven.
I thought for a change why not go with a FAQ-style document on Search Engine Optimization.
Here goes:
Q. What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the activity of ensuring content and assets can be found in search engines for relevant keywords and topics.
By measuring the content, website structure, code, and inbound links, a website will be rated through the search engine’s algorithm — the better a website performs in this algorithm, the higher the website will appear in the search results.
In short, it is the activity that ensures that your website is on page 1 of a search result (where most search journeys end) as opposed to languishing as opposed to being on page 39.
Example (I am going to stick with this for consistency):
You sell scented candles. So do a helluva lot of people.
Someone looking to buy will just buy them from the first few entries or at least browse the first few options they see.
Q. Why should you really do SEO?
Most digital journeys begin with search (do you remember a week going by without you using the search bar for something?)
Organic (AKA non sponsored or non-advertised) traffic is the biggest driver of website visits online and SEO naturally leads to an increase in the position of a website within a search engine results page.
When content is optimized for search engines using SEO, your target audience will see your content when they search for related words, phrases and questions.
Example: SEO allows you to rank for niche terms that can help you stand out. Perhaps just scented candles is not enough to cut it but Lavendar scented candles for honeymoon might.
Q. What should you know about SEO to consider making it a part of the mix of efforts you do?
SEO is about making it easier for search engines (Google, Bing, etc) to crawl, index, and understand your content. The cumulative effects of applying small (content & technical) changes to your site can result in large improvements in the user experience and consequently to the search visibility ranking of your site.
Organic search is not something that can be switched on/off, it is an evolving channel that changes on a frequent basis. Organic search requires patience and consistent investment for long-term success. SEO should be considered from your website’s point of inception.
Example: To even begin making a dent and standing up against the competition, you need to work consistently on the content, the ease with which your content can be crawled and indexed, etc.
Q. How should you go about understanding SEO?
So how do you begin? The first step is to use personas to understand search behavior — who is likely to be buying from you? What phrases/type of keywords do they use to search for you? Why are they searching? What kind of content or experience will fulfill their search objective? Who are your competitors for the same set of keywords?
Example — Purchase of scented candles goes up around holidays like Christmas or Valentine’s. Building content for individual pegs like this in addition to content that people could always be looking for answers to parts of the journey? If your user persona is of a worshiper looking for a religious ceremony versus a romantic couple versus a decor enthusiast — answering for all three user personas via your search engine can come in handy.
Q. Is SEO complex? What all would I need to be considerate about?
The premise of SEO is simple. Ensure your website best meets a search engine’s criteria for what someone is searching for.
However, executing it can be tedious and have multiple aspects.
SEO rests on three pillars:
Content — No content, no relevance to website visitors.
Technical soundness — After all, it is a search engine crawling your website, not a friendly neighbor redirecting you to a page
Authoritativeness — Why you? Why not Amazon? or another big-shot website that’s been around for way longer?
Within these elements, there are multiple considerations.
Example — So you have a website that sells scented candles? Good. Do you churn out tons and tons of content? Great. However, it will have no relevance if your content is not framed to the relevant keyword targeted eg: Buy cheap scented candles > Our scented candles come all the way from France.
The quality of the content (not just stuffing keywords for the sake of it), the way your content is structured, alt text added to your images all come in handy.
The second step — even if you get all the content steps ready, it means nothing if your website takes 20 seconds to load. Technical soundness means that your website is compatible with mobile (most searches happen there), load quickly, have an accessible architecture and UI/UX with correct meta-tagging for your content.
Getting technology wrong is like cleaning up the house for a party and then leaving the guests locked out because the search engine could not crawl your website.
Thirdly and most ambiguously — authority. How many blogs link to your website? How many reviews have been left on your website? Do you have a Wikipedia page for your brand and business? Have you been covered by the press?
Q. Ok, tell me more about website content, please?
Website content is where keywords and topics can be targeted to drive organic visibility and provide users with the brand’s information and proposition.
Search engines are continuously developing their understanding of content; its purpose, context, and trustworthiness.
Search engines want to provide users with the greatest user experience and best results based on relevance and accuracy. That is why content should always be of high-quality standard, using natural language and incorporating keywords where appropriate. As such, all content should adhere to Google’s quality rating guidelines and best practices:
Useful & Informative
More valuable and useful than other sites
Credible
High quality
Engaging
Your content should be relevant and useful to your audience, as well fast and easy to access on all devices.
Q. That’s about content, what should I know about my keywords? Since I have to target them correctly and all?
Once you have analyzed the needs of your personas, you can focus on the keywords they use. Knowing specifically what your audience is searching for ensures that you can create high-quality content that answers that need. Using terms that the audience is looking for consistency in your content helps the search engine bots crawl your site. The time your audience spends on your content also increases relevance for the bots and the algorithms.
A search query can be single words, short phrases, full sentences, questions, or more. It is critical that you consider the customer, put yourself in the shoes of each persona and find as many possible search combinations as possible.
Keywords are fundamental to search marketing campaigns. They are the foundation on which any search campaign is built, including website structures, content strategies, and paid advertising.
Keywords can be short tail eg: Scented Candles
They can be mid-tail eg: Scented Candles Aromatherapy
They can be long tail: Aurora Yellow Aromatherapy Scented Candles
Short tail keywords lead to navigational search — the user is trying to discover specifically what they want.
Mid tail keywords lead to transactional search — looking for a purchase or specific information
Long-tail keywords usually lead the user to finding exactly what is it that they are seeking.
All types of keywords have different roles in the content journey.
I like to call short, mid, and long keywords as hook, book, and cook keywords.
Q. How best to organize content?
having great and relevant content isn’t the only important thing — otherwise, every blogger would be displacing Wikipedia, amazon, and the likes.
Content structure and formatting are critical too. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the contents. It highlights important elements of content to search engines. This can help pull content through into the organic search results, improving the real estate owned by an organic result.
Here’s what you can look at:
Breadcrumb navigation — Improves URL appearance in search result pages eg: xyz.com/scentedcandles > xyz.com/hqhorj[rpi2p[2482048=
Author details and last updated content — Helps demonstrate content is fresh and expert-led eg: Say hello to guest writers
FAQ schema — Highlights question-and-answer content, which can be pulled through into the results (Ever wondered how you get those cool Q&A on Google?)
You should ensure thus that:
Your page titles are absolutely accurate and clear — Do not complicate. Use simplicity. Buy Candles. Gift Candles. Discounted Candles.
Your navigation should be super simple so that your visitors find the content they want quickly — do not hide your call to action buttons or relevant content in the garb of getting customers to spend time on your website. Also, get a sitemap you know? So that you can accommodate nifty (and hygiene) features like contact us, privacy policy, about us, etc.
Q. How do I place these keywords that I have shortlisted going forward?
Keywords should be used in the following on-page locations:
Title Tags: this is the strongest ranking indicator of a keyword target that search engines use. Best practice: 70 characters count.
Eg: Aurora Scented Candles
Meta description: use your keyword to provide context to your page’s content and add a call-to-action to improve the click-through rate. Best practice: 155 characters count.
Eg: Organic handmade candles perfect for regular use or gifting.
Headers: Every page should have a first header that targets primary keywords, and use secondary headers to target related/secondary keyword targets.
Eg: Product Range /Types of Scents
Images: Add Alt Text (image description) to every image. Best practice: 8 words max. Use relevant keywords to describe the image.
Eg: If your blog has this photo ^ make sure you add (invisible) alt text stating jasmine scented candles
Internal Linking & Link Anchor Text: Use keyword targets to link through to other pages and resources on the website. Also, include citations and out links to high-quality relevant sources
Eg: So your ingredients are sourced from a particular region? Link. At the end of your blog - Link to the purchase page. Etc Etc
Connect the dots. Your web pages are not in isolation but an intrinsically woven part of the digital journey of your customer
URL: Ensure the page’s URL clearly describes the page’s content and includes the primary keyword target. Best practice: keep the length of URL under 75 characters.
Eg: xyz.com/rose-scented-candles > xyz.com/bfoiwhfpwru8q20=tuwp[o-fow9
Oh and please choose a Domain Name (DN) carefully as it can be one of the most important steps in establishing your brand. The DN is often one of the first things your audience sees, and it can affect their impression of your website and your brand. A carefully chosen DN may drive web traffic, while a carelessly chosen one might do the opposite.
Q. I am exhausted reading all this, but hey what if I want to use images, what should I keep in mind?
Plenty (just like the rest of this piece).
Ensure images you upload are in standard formats (JPEG, PNG). Also, they aren’t too large so that they don’t compromise page load time.
Image is responsive on mobile
Remember search engines can’t see images — they can only read them — so describe the text.
Creative dedicated URLs for each image so that indexation can be done.
Easier said than done, but avoid stock imagery, please
Q. Wait, is there some info you have on videos?
Yup, yup, yup.
Optimize title and description for keywords
Avoid the same video on multiple pages
Ensure the video is relevant to other content on the page
Ideally host on YouTube before embedding
Create transcript/promote on social channels (if possible)
Q. I am dying. Is there anything more that needs to be done for content?
Yes. Tie up with anyone who can be authoritative (eg: Fashion bloggers, interior decorators) — ensure that you are always mobile optimized and keep churning fresh content.
Q. Great, can we move to technical SEO? I am not a Techie. Kinda worried about this one.
Worry not. First of all, build a search map. Check out which Search engines or platforms used (including social media, online forums, etc.) will fall under your ambit. What are the results that are currently appearing (what are our personas currently finding?). Are there any key digital properties and any key players that you can’t really breakthrough (eg: A bunch of digital retail giants?) Do a search audit of our own digital properties and do a search audit of our competitors’ digital properties.
Ta-da.
Q. Still worried. Where do I start?
Technical SEO strategy is tailored to improve the way search engines access a website’s content and improve the user’s experience, which is used as ranking factors.
Basic SEO features include mobile responsiveness and required page metadata.
Addressing technical issues can lead to improved visibility quicker than trying to optimize content further. Technical SEO is the foundation and structure that allow your content to perform well.
These words (that initially appear like mumbo-jumbo) are the key:
Accessibility — are the search engines able to find your page?
Canonicals & Duplication — No HTML or Error 404 situations
Architecture — Is the website hierarchy indicative of a good search journey?
On-Page Optimization — Is the content marrying into the architecture?
Mobile-responsive site
Analytics — Get Google Analytics. It’s free :)
Get your website indexed.
This means, have your site’s pages been included in Google’s search? To find out, do a site search.
In Google, type “site: your site’s home URL”. If you see results, you’re in the index
If you are not indexed read this advice from Google.
Get your website secure.
Your website should use HTTPS protocol for added security. Ensure that your website’s URL starts with https ://
Q. Not bad. Can we discuss authority again?
A backlink also called an “inbound link” or “incoming link,” is created when one website links to another. The link between the two websites is the backlink; so named because it points back to the linked-to page.
Backlinks from high-quality websites act as a signal to search engines that other websites vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same website, search engines can safely assume that their content is worthwhile, which can aid long-term organic visibility.
Links should always:
Be earned from an editorial or strategically-placed AKA Not your niece’s WordPress blog with zero followers
Come from authoritative sources AKA a major publication
Come from topically relevant sources AKA a major publication that is related to design for a candles website, not international politics
Increase over time AKA Not a flash in the pan
Bring qualified traffic to the site AKA a few people who buy and spend some time around
Basically, focus on relevancy and quality over quantity
Total number of referring domains is better than the total number of links. Links should also come from relevant websites;
Google stresses the importance of avoiding low-quality of ‘spammy’ link-building. Tactics to avoid include paying for links, putting excessive links in outreach content, and mass outreach campaigns that focus on quantity over quality;
Creating content that is useful and will warrant organic backlinks. This can be anything from resources, guides, tools, or informational content from subject matter experts.
Monitor your online presence
Other websites may discuss yours without providing a backlink. This means no authority is passed to your website, as there are no on-page signals for search engines to interpret;
Search for unlinked brand mentions with SEO tools (Moz, SEMRush). Contact the identified websites and request they link back to yours.
Keep an eye on your search competitors
Updates and site re-designs often lead to competitors removing successful, link-earning content. Monitor competitor backlink profiles to identify ‘lost links’, and develop a reactive content strategy to target these content gaps.
Consider traffic-driving opportunities
Link-building is more than looking for high-authority websites. Links can drive relevant engaged traffic, even if the website is technically less authoritative
Q. So are we done here? How do I measure I did a half-decent job?
Your campaign content appears high up in search results on the search engines used by your audience.
Ideal: in the top 10 results (the first page) returned with all the common terms your audience will use.
You can measure success by analyzing your website organic traffic:
Ensure Google Analytics is set up correctly for optimum results;
Sync your Search Console Account
Create SEO-related goals
Track keywords and search queries
Compare non-organic visitors to organic
Find top-performing content and top-performing landing pages
Add annotations to track content updates
Hope you found this useful. Got a recommendation for another aspect of digital marketing that you would like to have broken down? Leave a response.
Thanks for reading this far. Share this blog with someone who works (or wants to work in Marketing).