What Is SEO Exactly?
To quickly sum up, SEO is all the actions you make to have a good position in search engine results like Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Do you remember the time when Google was not the most important search engine? The web was then a mess where all websites had the same importance; it was more like a vast catalogue. Google then stood out from its competitors by offering something new: index sites according to its search relevance. It is why Google analyses all websites to index them according to its criteria. Because it was a better way to proceed, other search engines started to do the same thing.
Therefore, when you publish your website, Google analyses it and indexes it according to a set of predefined rules. If you wish to appear on search results, you must then respect all requests from search engines. SEO, in other words, is to make sure your site is easily analysed and understood by Google, but also to respect all its indexing criteria. We must not forget that despite all this web giant’s power, it is not humans that analyse and index your site. You must then help these robots a little.
Why Is It Important to Optimize Your Site for Search Engines?
But is it worth it to make all these efforts to appear on Google’s first pages of results? The answer is yes. Millions of searches are made every day, and many are related to your field. For example, if you are a hairdresser in Ottawa and someone in this area wishes to make an appointment for a haircut, this person can become a customer if he finds you. It is the same thing if you are selling a product. Google can bring people to your site, but you need to have optimized your site to achieve this. The higher you appear on the result page, the more visits and sales you have.
Important Elements of SEO
What elements does Google need to index your website? Here are a few:
First, the texts on your site are essential for your SEO. When your site is online, Google robots read your content to find your website’s topic. You must then take the time to add texts on each page and use the same relevant keywords everywhere. The more these words will be present, the more Google will understand that they are important for your site. Avoid spelling or grammar mistakes too.
→ Learn how to choose the right keywords for your website.
What text do you want to appear when we look for your site on Google? You can customize the title and the description of your website with the title tag and meta description. Those two should include the name of the site and the main keywords. The title should have a maximum of 70 characters and the meta description 230.
If we take the hairdresser example once more, the title tag could be Hairdresser in Ottawa - Haircuts for children, women and men. The meta description could then be Looking for an amazing haircut? Visit the Hairdresser Salon in Ottawa: cut, color, styling, extensions, barber services, and much more! Make an appointment today.
Two elements that are analysed by Google are the bounce rate and the time spent on your site. First, the bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that arrived on your website and then left without doing anything on it. The more this percentage is high, the more it tells Google that your site did not have what people are looking for. This can penalize you. You must then convince your visitors to stay on your site and visit the other pages. Create links between different sections of your websites to ease the browsing experience.
Also, make sure that you add links from other sites to yours. These links are called backlinks. The more you will have backlinks from relevant sites, the more search engines will think your website is credible.
How Can You Optimize your WebSelf Website?
WebSelf puts at your disposal many tools to help your SEO. First, directly on the editor, there is a section where you can write the title tag, meta description, and keywords of your site. Click on the PAGES tab located left, then on the homepage and SEO.
Moreover, on the dashboard, you have access to three tools for your SEO when you click on MANAGE. The first tool allows you to see if Google has analysed your site. You only have to click on the SEE IF MY WEBSITE IS OPTIMIZED (SEO) button. Then, on its right, there is a box where it is written Improve your site. You will find there 10 things to improve your site’s visibility. Finally, there is a third tool called Analyse my website (SEO). It is where you can see if you used your keywords on all sections of your site adequately.
In conclusion, it takes time to climb up positions on the search results. Start by completing your site, then enter all the different elements for your SEO. If after a few days you do not see any differences, stay calm and read our article Why my website does not appear on Google?