An Easy Guide to SEO and Backlinks
SEO and backlinks go hand-in-hand. People need to be able to find your content online for your site to be successful. Without a site that’s properly optimized for search engines, it’s going to be far more difficult for potential customers to find you. An important tool for SEO is backlinks, which not only help drive traffic to your site, but also make you a trusted source on your business type.
What Is SEO and How Does it Effect My Website
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It describes the process of enhancing your website to improve its visibility for search engines. The better your website is optimized, the more people will find it when they search for your services on popular search engines. Search engines like Bing and Google perform a process known as “Crawling” when attempting to index a website. A bot crawls through web pages and collects important information that helps it determine your site’s purpose and relevancy to that intended purpose. After the bot has completed its crawl, the information is placed in an index. From there, algorithms will analyze the data and determine where these pages should be placed in the search results for that specific topic.
Without proper SEO, your website will be hindered by a lack of visibility. This means that any of your competing businesses that took the time to optimize their content will have first dibs on customers that could’ve been yours. So, you will actively be putting your business at a disadvantage with the competition when you neglect SEO and backlinks.
Why Is Getting Backlinks So Important?
Backlinks, also known as “inbound links” and “outbound links,” are the result of one website linking to another. To put it simply, the more quality backlinks you have, the more valuable your content is considered overall. If you manage to gain a decent amount of other respected websites linking to your pages, this sends a signal to search engines that what you’re providing is credible and would be considered useful content to others. Thus, making it more likely your website will appear in a SERP.
Backlinks also improve your site’s chances of being viewed as an authority on the products and services you offer. Additionally, more sites linking to your pages means more chances for visitors of their site to go check out yours.
SEO Tips to Improve Your Website
The processes behind SEO can seem a bit confusing at times for someone just starting their first website. Fortunately, however, it’s not as intimidating as it seems once you learn more about how it works. Below are some tips on what you can do to improve your site’s search engine optimization:
Learn How to Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics helps you track your website activity. It’ll give you an in-depth look at the traffic, bounce rate, and average session durations for your site. This is a valuable tool that helps you track important website data and progress as you improve your SEO.
Create Quality Content That's Informative
It’s simple – put yourself in your consumer’s shoes and consider what type of content you’d want to see from the business you’re researching. You want something that’s unique, well-written, and informative, right? Those factors in regard to your content are going to play a major role in how Google’s algorithm views what you’re publishing on your website. Google’s algorithm is there to help determine what content will prove most useful to a specific subject for those using the search engine. This means that it’s important that the content you’re posting shows that you’re a reliable, informative authority on what you’re offering.
Additionally, when writing for your blog – make sure your titles are direct and easy-to-read. Your titles, headings, and subheadings should all feature sentences that your target audience would likely type into a search engine.
Give Images the Right Titles and Descriptions
The titles, descriptions, and alt text on the images you post in blogs and webpages are actually more important than you think. If the image experiences a loading error, the caption will help visitors determine what the image was supposed to be.
This written information on your images will also help search engines learn important details about them and discern which should be used in image searches.
SEO Tips for Using Good Keyphrases
Look for specific target keyword phrases for each page of your site that’s relevant to your content. You also want to avoid using more than one keyword phrase per page, since it makes the process of ranking your content that much harder for search engines. Break down your page’s content to its core purpose and look for a natural keyphrase that your audience may use to find such content. Also, be mindful of where your phrases are placed and how often they’re used on a single page. If you continuously try to force your chosen phrases into content where it looks awkward, people are going to notice. It’ll end up hurting your content more than helping it, with visitors and search engines alike.
To improve ranking, try to find keywords and phrases that can easily fit into page titles and URLs as well as headings and subheadings. There are plenty of services available online that can help you decide what phrases and keywords are best, such as WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool.
How to Get Backlinks
Backlinks are a must for websites looking to improve their SEO and rank higher on search engines. While obtaining quality backlinks from other sites may take some time and effort, it’s absolutely worth the work. The following are just some of the ways you can build backlinks to your website.
Offer Guest Blog Posts to Get Backlinks
Look for reputable sites where your content would fit best and contact the webmaster to see if they would accept a guest post from you. If they agree, you’ll likely receive a link in that post that can direct readers to your website. Guest posts don’t have to be a grand display of writing, they just need to be informative, well-written, and SEO-friendly.
Get Backlinks by Creating Visual Content
Design infographics, charts, and other visual content on the types of products and services you offer. People covering these topics may decide to link to your visual content to save themselves the trouble of creating it themselves from scratch.
Utilize Press Request Alerts to Connect with Journalists
When a member of the press needs a quote from an expert on a specific topic, they usually post requests online seeking volunteers. If you see a request that you are qualified to answer, reach out to the journalist requesting help and offer your services.
Consider Partnering with Other companies
Look for companies that provide products and services that would compliment your own and reach out to see if they’d be interested in partnering up. This can help you establish an effective give-and-take relationship with other companies where both you and your marketing partner can link to each other’s content.
Make sure that the company you reach out to isn’t in direct competition with your own. Additionally, when looking for the right company to partner with, try to find ones that have already established themselves online. Sites that receive higher traffic are, for obvious reasons, the ones you want to link with.
Research Who Your Competitors Get Backlinks From
Do a bit of reconnaissance on your competing business’ websites and see who they’ve established backlinks with. This can be a fantastic way to learn about which outlets are open to linking with content like yours.
Make Your Web Content Easier to Share On Social Media
Adding social media buttons to your blogs and web pages can be great for encouraging your visitors to spread the word on your business. More shares equals more visitors and the possibility of more customers.
In addition to making your website content sharable, make sure that you’re also utilizing social media to market your brand. Create content for pages directly on the platforms.
Conclusion
There are lots of ways you can improve your SEO and get backlinks to rank higher on search engines. While some methods are easier and faster than others, the methods that take more work – such as building backlinks – shouldn’t be ignored. The point is if you put time and effort into improving your website and creating quality content, you’ll see results. They may not be overnight results, but you’ll see them in time. Adding more tasks into your day-to-day routine, while also managing a business, may be easier said than done. If you’re already swamped with work and need help with SEO and your digital marketing strategy, Call Olive Group Today! We’ll schedule a free marketing meeting with you to help you get started.