Search engine optimization (SEO) helps you to attract more organic or unpaid traffic to your website. When you know a few simple search engine optimization techniques it can mean the difference between your website getting ranked on the search engines or just being ignored.
There are basically two types of search engine optimization. On-page, that deals with everything on your website and, off-page that is concerned with what you do away from your website to bring people to your website.
On-Page SEO
Keywords
Your keywords are the words and phrases that somebody will type into a search engine when they searching for information online. Insert keywords in your page titles and subheadings. Search bots look at the words in your headings and use them as signals to the main topic of the page.
Content
You want to have a variety of different types of content for maximum SEO value. This includes articles or blog posts, graphics, illustrations or photos. Keep your paragraphs short, use bullet points and subheadings and make your content easy for humans to read (not just search engine bots). Your SEO results will improve if you generate content material that will remain relevant for as long as possible. When your content is 'evergreen' it means that you concentrate on issues that people will have for months and years to come.
Keyword Density
Don't jam as many keywords into your content to try attract the attention of the search engines. This not only makes it difficult for people to read but also your website could be considered as a spam site and get blacklisted. Your keyword density is determined by dividing the number of keywords, by the number of words on a page. The recognized standard for keyword density is between 2% and 5%.
Off-Page SEO
Backlinks
When other websites link to you, you will get you more search engine traffic. These links, called backlinks must come from quantity and legitimate websites.
Social Media
Social media is one of the most important off-page SEO tactics. People looking at and sharing your content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ will gain favour with the search engines.
Trust
There is almost nothing more important to your website's success than trust. If you lose the trust of your audience, you lose sales and any authority standing. You can build trust by sharing authoritative and accurate content that you have created and that others have created.
