Learn the basics of SEO
Nearly 70% of businesses never optimize their websites for search engines, and even fewer websites consistently invest in SEO.
Learning the basics of SEO can give your website a significant competitive advantage, as most businesses simply overlook SEO. By optimizing your website, you'll improve visibility, attract more organic traffic, and ultimately drive conversions.
It’s an investment that pays off over time, and it’s one of the best methods for sustainable online growth.
Is Your Website Worthy of a #1 Ranking?
Start by evaluating your website's overall quality, and honestly determine if your website deserves to rank #1 on Google above the existing competition. This includes design, content, authority, etc. Use the following checklist to self-assess:
Is your website visually appealing (is it ugly)?
Does it have high-quality, relevant content?
Does it even have the content to rank for what I want the website to rank for?
Do you provide an excellent user experience on all devices?
Can users get better information, or a better experience, somewhere else?
In the eyes of Google, do you even have the authority to be the #1 voice in your industry?
Be honest with yourself about your website's strengths and weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to ask your friends, co-workers, and even complete strangers to gather their honest opinions. Take every opinion with a grain of salt, but you need third-party input on your website to help you better grasp just how good (or bad) your website quality is.
Compare your website with the competition
Next, let’s compare your website with your top competitors. These are the websites already ranking for the keywords that you want to rank for. Look at their designs, content, the layout, and user experience.
For example, if you’re a dentist in Dallas, check the top-ranking dental websites in your area.
If you’re just starting your SEO journey, is it really realistic for you to outrank all of your competition? How long has your competition been building their SEO and improving their website?
Also, consider all the keywords your competition is ranking for, and consider what you might want to rank for. Look at their best performing pages (the ones ranking on Google Search) and absorb everything so you can learn to do it better.
Do they have awards that you don’t have? Do they have an active social media presence? Ask yourself these questions and examine everything they are doing to earn that #1 spot, because usually it is in-fact earned.
The beauty of SEO is that there are no secrets, so do your sleuthing and take notes!
One Keyword, One Page, no exceptions
The one-keyword-per-page approach is vital. This strategy ensures that each page focuses on a specific keyword, making it easier for Google to understand what your content is about. Additionally, it allows your website the opportunity to optimize the entire page’s content to one thing at a time, and provide a better search result for the users search.
For example, lets take two different websites in the same industry.
Website 1 wants to rank for 5 different keywords that are all somewhat similar to each-other, so they create a single website page with at least one section of the page dedicated to each keyword.
Website 2 wants to rank for the same keywords, but instead of putting it all on one page, Website 2 creates 5 unique pages dedicated to each keyword. Because of this, Website 2 is able to create an experience around one keyword at a time, providing a better quality result for the user.
Which website do you think will have a higher chance of ranking for each keyword?
The website that included multiple on a single page, or the website that created multiple pages dedicated to each individual keyword? Obviously, the website that created multiple pages tailored to each keyword has the higher chance of ranking. Therefore, you should do the same with your website.
In our experience, even if the keywords are similar, creating one page for one keyword doesn’t mean that page will only rank for the one thing. If you’re creating quality content around each keyword, it’s likely you’ll end up ranking for others too.
One of our clients has a single blog post that was written for one extremely specific topic, and it literally ranks for over 1,000 keywords on Google today. So don’t take our word for it, take our work for it.
Long-Tail Keywords
Going after long-tail keywords can be super beneficial, especially for new websites just starting their SEO journey. These are longer, more specific phrases that are less competitive. For example, instead of targeting "dentist," aim for "best pediatric dentist in Plano." Though search volumes may be lower, competition will also be less fierce.
Also, while it’s not explicitly stated anywhere, we believe that winning long-tail keywords helps build your website authority. Earning #1 rankings for these long-tail keywords helps build your website traffic volume, and these keywords are typically higher converting.
Winning rankings for long-tail keywords, or keywords with lower competition, is a great way to learn SEO. Usually, you can very quickly learn what works, what doesn’t, and thanks to the lower competition you’ll be able to more quickly see the results of your efforts.
On-Page Optimization
How can you rank for a keyword if your website doesn’t include the keyword in it?
We need to make it as easy as possible for search engines to know precisely what each website page is about. That way, when search engines index the page (or assign a rank for a given keyword), they can be more confident in the relevance of your website page related to the users search query.
This means you need to tailor your website page and it’s content to the keyword you want to rank for. Here’s a super basic checklist you can follow to get you started, using the keyword “Learn SEO” as an example. We want our page contents to include this keyword in the following:
URL structure
Page title
Page contents (in the text)
Image descriptions
Links
That said, there is an out-dated strategy of “cramming” the keyword in your content in order to trick search engines to ranking your page over others, this does not work. Instead, focus on including the keyword where it should naturally be included in the content. Keep your content intuitive, and focus on really catering to the user so that they can learn everything you know on the provided topic.
This means you’ll need to do some research, and if you want to rank #1, you’ll need to create better content than the competition!
Building Authority with Google
Creating high-quality, informative content is the most important thing in SEO after you cover your basics. But just focusing on your website content is no longer enough to rank #1 on search engines, at least not usually. You’ll need to build a little bit of authority with search engines first, but what does that look like?
Backlinks and Referrals
Imagine yourself as the new employee at an office, you just got hired, and nobody knows you yet. If you’re truly an expert and have authority in what you do for work, how can you expect others to know that without seeing your work yet? You gain authority by getting introductions from other co-workers that see your work, and speak highly of you. The same thing goes for the internet.
You can build authority with search engines by driving traffic from other websites to your own.
Popular examples of this include:
Social media
Business listings
Guest posting on popular blogs
Links from other websites to your own are called “backlinks”. The more backlinks, and the greater the number of high-quality websites linking to you, the more authority you’ll have with search engines. The more authority you have, the easier it is to rank for more competitive keywords, and the harder it is to lose your rankings to the competition.
Social Media Engagement
Search engines also look for what we call “social signals”. This is traffic that clicks from social media into your website.
There’s lots of way to get traffic to your website from social media, including:
Posting you own social media content (directing people to your ‘link in bio’)
Collaborating with influencers
Run a giveaway competition and encourage users to tag others or apply online
The best part is that you can receive social signals from every social media platform, and there are many.
Patience and Persistence in SEO
SEO is not a quick fix, and you need to understand that you are not entitled to rank on any search engine. Rankings are earned and given by search engines. All we can do it everything we can to give it our best shot at earning those coveted top rankings.
Achieving a top ranking often takes months or even years of consistent SEO effort.
You have to consider the fact that there are other websites that have been investing in SEO, and improving their online presence for decade. Don’t get discouraged by this! A lot of ranking websites have outdated content, or they’ve had their ranking(s) so long that they get comfortable and stop investing in their SEO.
Search engines, like Google, also place some emphasis on how current your website and other metrics are. For example, if you earned a million backlinks 10 years ago, are those links as relevant and meaningful today? Probably not. The same thing goes for social signals, and everything else related to SEO.
This means that there will always be new opportunities to rank and beat the competition.
Budget and Resources
If you’re working with a reputable SEO expert, your SEO budget will directly impact your results. This is due to the simple relationship between time and labor cost. The more time you can dedicate towards improving you SEO, your website, your social media, the better results you’ll see.
Set a realistic budget based on your needs and goals. Generally speaking, a higher investment typically leads to better outcomes, but you also can’t just invest once and expect to attain lasting results. Remember how search engines place importance on how current everything is, and realize that SEO is a marathon not a sprint.
Plan your budget for SEO annually, and give it your best effort.
Measuring Success and SEO performance
Measuring your SEO performance is a lot easier than you think. Search engines already provide you with a suite of free tools such as Google Search Console to help you measure your performance and key metrics.
You can quickly measure SEO performance using these key metrics:
Website traffic volume from organic search
# of top 3 search rankings
Generally speaking, more rankings = more traffic. But this is only true if you get traffic from those rankings. Moreover, it’s important that you get traffic from keywords relevant to your business.
Use tools like Google Analytics or Bing Webmaster to access all the metrics related to your websites performance on search engines.
Avoiding Common SEO Mistakes
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people spreading misinformation about SEO, and most of it comes from within the SEO industry…
That’s why you need to focus on what search engines are actually asking of you.
We’re not telling you to put on blinders, there are always new tools and strategies that can honestly help your SEO efforts, but every major Google update there is a massive wave of SEO’s that freak out and will tell you how their “strategy” is the winning one.
The reality is that SEO hasn’t really changed much over recent years, and it doesn’t look like it will change much in the future. Search engines have one ultimate function, “to provide users the best results for what they’re looking for”. With that in mind, all you really have to do is try to be that best result!
Instant results are super rare
Don’t fall for the misconception that hiring an SEO agency guarantees instant results. Real SEO progress takes dedication and time.
Transparently, we actually see instant SEO improvement in rare cases, usually nothing completely game-changing for a business, but we won’t say it never happens. That said, we never promise this.
It is generally accepted within the SEO industry that you can expect to see results in 3-6 months after you start working on your SEO. But it really depends on what work is done, what your website needs, and your website history.
Getting direct Traffic
There is a lot of power in getting people to actually type your website directly into the search bar.
Imagine you are the search engine, and you are evaluating two websites and deciding on which should rank higher. Both websites have equally great content and would serve users equally. All other SEO metrics the same, how would you determine which to rank higher? A great method would be to compare their direct traffic volumes.
Search engines, like Google, have their own internet browsers and they’re able to see if your website has anybody going to it directly. In fact, direct traffic is trackable within Google Analytics!
You’ll want to consider strategies to get direct traffic such as:
Guerrilla marketing
Email marketing
Have an easy-to-remember domain
Give users a reason to bookmark and revisit your website
Getting direct traffic to your website is one of the most underrated ways to bolster your authority with search engines, and improve your SEO performance.
Did you learn anything new?
We hope that we’ve been able to help you learn, at the very least, the basics of SEO. Understanding the concept of what it honestly takes to rank on search engines will help you avoid the numerous and ever-evolving pitfalls related to bad SEO practices.
So stick with the basics, and give search engines what they really want, “the best search result for what people are looking for”.
FAQs
What are the most important factors in determining if my website deserves a #1 ranking on Google?
To determine if your website deserves a top ranking, evaluate its visual appeal, content quality and relevance, user experience across all devices, and overall authority within your industry compared to competitors.
Why is the "one keyword, one page" strategy important for SEO?
The "one keyword, one page" strategy helps search engines understand the specific focus of each page, allowing for better content optimization and a higher-quality search result for users, increasing the likelihood of ranking for targeted keywords.
How can targeting long-tail keywords benefit a new website's SEO?
Targeting long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive, helps new websites build authority, drive traffic, and quickly learn effective SEO strategies, leading to improved rankings and conversions.
What are the key elements of on-page optimization, and why are they important?
Key elements of on-page optimization include incorporating target keywords in the URL structure, page title, content, image descriptions, and links. This helps search engines understand the page's topic and improves its relevance for specific search queries.
How can I build authority with Google and other search engines?
You can build authority by creating high-quality content, earning backlinks and referrals from other reputable websites, increasing social media engagement, and consistently investing in SEO efforts over time. This demonstrates expertise and trustworthiness to search engines.
