{"id":26135,"date":"2016-03-03T12:33:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T12:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/?p=26135"},"modified":"2016-03-03T12:33:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T12:33:55","slug":"seo-for-beginners-how-to-improve-your-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/blog\/seo-for-beginners-how-to-improve-your-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO for beginners: How to improve your SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEO for beginners: How to improve your SEO<\/h1>\n

SEO is one of those things that people talk about all the time in connection to websites, but it so often seems to be such a technical topic that many people ignore it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually simpler than you think \u2026 and can have huge ramifications for your business!<\/p>\n

What is SEO, anyway?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of taking steps to ensure that your website ranks as highly as possible on major search engines, like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The higher a website is ranked, the closer it appears to the top of the list of search results that you get back when you type in words related to your business or industry. Ideally, you want your website to show up on the first Search Engine Results Page (SERP), because that means that people are much more likely to click on it. Just think about it \u2014 when is the last time you clicked on a website that wasn\u2019t on the first page of results that came up?<\/p>\n

So while it doesn\u2019t mean that your business will fail without good SEO, it\u2019s definitely something you should consider when you\u2019re competing with other businesses online. Businesses that have good SEO will more likely to get the business that you should have been getting. Their product might not be as good as yours, but if they\u2019re enticing the audience online to click on their search results, they\u2019re more likely to succeed.<\/p>\n

How does it work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

There are two main ways that you can get your website to rank highly like that: with organic results (which you don\u2019t pay for) or with paid results (which are ads that you pay for).<\/p>\n

\"Organic-Paid-Results\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to focus on organic SEO and give you some best practices for increasing your online visibility for free.<\/p>\n

As far as organic content goes, search engines use complex algorithms to determine where your page should rank. They have criteria that they look for in every page, including how interesting, unique, and authoritative your page is. They then use robots (also called spiders) to scan your page and see how well it fits these criteria. The better it fits \u2014 the more it seems like people searching for a particular term would be benefited by your page \u2014 the higher your page will rank.<\/p>\n

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SEO Best Practices<\/b><\/h2>\n

So how can you show search engines that your page fits their criteria? You follow practices like:<\/p>\n

1. Optimising your meta data with keywords<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sounds jargony, but what it actually means is that you think about the types of words and phrases that people would use when searching for something like your webpage.<\/p>\n

\"SEO-Must-Read-Image-1\"<\/p>\n

For instance, if you run a florist shop in Kensington, then \u201cKensington florist\u201d would be a keyword that people would likely use when searching for a business of your kind. Similarly, if you\u2019ve published a blog post on how to do Forex trading, then \u201cForex trading tips\u201d might be a relevant keyword.<\/p>\n

When you include these words in the meta data of your page \u2014 which includes the title tags, the meta description, the image alt attributes, and the header tags \u2014 you make it easier for search engines to categorise your content and see its value, which means that you\u2019ll likely rank more highly.<\/p>\n

2. Link building<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Link building is the process of getting other websites that are relevant to your niche to link to your website. For instance, we at Clear Books could try to get a website that talks about useful accounting software to link to us. This type of link is called a backlink. The more backlinks you have, the more highly your website will likely rank \u2014 the logic goes that other people would mainly be linking to your website because it\u2019s interesting and relevant.<\/p>\n

\"SEO-Must-Read-Image-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Content creation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Since search engines are looking for sites with unique, interesting content, the more useful content you create the better. It\u2019s important to write content regularly, but also to make sure that you\u2019re not just writing content for its own sake. You want each piece to be unique and interesting to your target audience, because then they\u2019ll be more likely to share it. The more it\u2019s shared, the more interesting search engines consider it to be, and the higher it will rank.<\/p>\n

\"SEO-Must-Read-Image-3\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mistakes to Avoid<\/b><\/h2>\n

The main pitfall of SEO is using things called black hat SEO strategies. These are strategies that violate search engine guidelines, and websites that use them are more likely to be penalised (to have their rank lowered) or taken off of Google completely, so avoid them!<\/p>\n

Some of the most common black hat SEO techniques include:<\/p>\n

1. Keyword stuffing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This is the practice of overusing keywords on your page, in your meta data, or in the content itself to try to rank better for that particular keyword. We’ve all seen posts like that \u2014 the language is awkward, and the topic word seems to be used in every single sentence.<\/p>\n

\"SEO-Must-Read-Image-4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If search engines think that you\u2019re stuffing keywords unnecessarily into your page, they can ban you temporarily or permanently. It\u2019s very easy to avoid this though: just make sure that your content flows; you\u2019ll naturally end up incorporating important keywords. And of course, make sure that your content is written with an actual human audience in mind \u2014 don\u2019t just write posts for the sake of your search engine rankings.<\/p>\n

2. Doorway pages<\/strong><\/h3>\n

These are pages that are created specifically to rank highly for specific search queries, and specifically for search engines and not humans. A lot of times, these pages are programmed to redirect the person to another page as soon as they click on it, or they just contain a link to the page that the person actually wants. This is a clear breach of Google guidelines, and it can get your website penalised.<\/p>\n

3. Link farming<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Some websites are created specifically to collect links to increase the popularity of other websites. (Remember backlinking?) Most of the time, the links on these pages won\u2019t be relevant to your website, will contain negative words or phrases, and will be low quality. So make sure that you only link with websites that are in your niche, are relevant to the services you\u2019re offering, and aren\u2019t linked to hundreds of dodgy looking links.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Should you hire someone to do your SEO?<\/b><\/h2>\n

SEO is a specialised area, which is why many businesses hire a person or a team to take care of it for them. But that being said, you can learn the basics of SEO pretty easily, so you don\u2019t absolutely have to hire someone. Ultimately, you need to think of how valuable your time is and whether or not you want to sacrifice that time to learn and do SEO from the other areas of your business. It can be time consuming, especially at first, and it might take a while for you to master it, so consider what\u2019s going to work best for your situation.<\/p>\n

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First Steps<\/b><\/h2>\n

If you choose not to hire an SEO adviser, there are still loads of things you can do to improve your SEO by yourself. Some of the best ones are to:<\/p>\n

1. Publish content every day, if you can, but publish it according to a consistent schedule regardless.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s better to consistently publish once a week for months on end than to publish every day for a month, then nothing for two months, then another month of daily content.<\/p>\n

2. Network with vendors and partners to increase your backlinks<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This can be as simple as asking a partner or a vendor to link to you, or you can do more complicated things, like having a partner interview you and then link back to you in the interview post.<\/p>\n

3. Start an online SEO course<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s really not difficult to get to grips with the basics of SEO \u2014 it just takes a little time.<\/p>\n

4. Curate your social media presence<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Even simple things like making sure that you have a social media profile for your business across multiple platforms, or making sure that big keywords related to your industry are showing up on your pages and profiles can make a big difference.<\/p>\n

5. Guest blog<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Look for opportunities to guest blog on websites within your niche. It\u2019s a great way to improve your SEO, not to mention that you can really raise your business\u2019s profile if you can guest blog for well known industry sites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Remember:<\/b><\/h3>\n