How do you make your website popular and appear on the first page of search engines?
Is it necessary to pay for advertisements and create extra content each time?
Well, it turns out that paying for advertisement and constant content creation is not the ultimate answer to these questions.
Because every search engine like Google has an algorithm with various indicators to determine the ranking of a website.
You can fulfill these indicators by optimizing your website using SEO.
What is SEO? Find the answer in this article.
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What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is an effort made to optimize a website to get a high ranking on search results pages or SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), especially in organic research.
Organic research is the search for a website or content using keywords.
When a website ranks high, its chances of appearing on the first page of search results will increase.
This is directly proportional to the potential of organic traffic to the website. Organic traffic will certainly increase by getting targeted visitors.
Visitors are looking for websites with themes or topics of discussion that match the keywords they entered into the search column.
Therefore, SEO can also be used in a business's business digital marketing strategy.
With optimal SEO, your business website has a greater chance of being on the SERPs' main page and reaching more potential new customers.
How SEO Works
Actually, every search engine has a robot with its own algorithm that is used to determine the ranking of websites on search results pages.
The process that first occurs in a search engine is crawling. Search engine robots will carefully collect all information from all websites on the internet. It will collect information about page loading speed, title tags, social signals, internal linking, backlinks, etc.
After the crawling process is complete, the indexing process occurs. The process of storing all the information that has been obtained into the entry list.
In the end, there is a ranking process to display content that best fits the search engine algorithm in sequence.
Well, to fulfill various indicators in the robot's algorithm, SEO is used.
In this discussion, what will be discussed is SEO on the Google search engine. The reason is that among the many search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, and so on, Google ranks first as the most widely used search engine globally.
As of May 2022, it was observed that 92.48% of internet users were using this search engine.
What should be noted is that Google has an algorithm that is always being developed to maximize service. So, you must follow the changes periodically.
If you don't follow its development, your optimization efforts will not produce anything meaningful.
For example, the use of spam backlinks before April 24, 2012.
At first, the use of many backlinks by spamming succeeded in increasing search ranking on Google. But because this is detrimental to many parties, Google released an algorithm called Google Penguin to lower the ranking of sites with several irrelevant and spam backlinks.
Types of SEO
There are two types of SEO that you can apply to your website: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Both of these techniques aim to make your website more user-friendly and trustworthy.
1. On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is an optimization effort carried out on your website.
For example, if you make an article, the article's arrangement or structure can be made to meet SEO standards.
Some of the optimization steps in on-page SEO are:
- Changing permalinks to simple links
- Paying attention to the title writing
- Proper use of headings
- Use of internal links
- Use of outbound links, and so on.
2. Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is an optimization effort that is carried out outside your website.
Many factors outside the website can affect its ranking, such as the number of backlinks and DA/PA scores.
Key SEO Indicators
For now, the indicators used by Google to rank a website are as follows:
1. URL Structure
URL structure (Uniform Resource Language) is very influential on SEO and the quality of a website.
We recommend that a website use a simple URL containing the domain name and keywords.
For each of the pages, make sure you have changed the permalinks using the main keyword of your content page.
This will make it easier for search engines to recognize your website and the main topics discussed.
2. Use of SSL/TLS
SSL/TLS is a security protocol that will ensure the confidentiality of information transactions through the website using a data encryption process.
Because of the importance of this security protocol, since 2014, Google Chrome has labeled websites that do not use SSL/TLS as not secure. While a secure website is labeled with a padlock symbol.
With various crimes that may occur in cyberspace, it is not surprising that Google will place websites that are considered safe to rank higher on the SERP.
3. Search Intent
Search Intent is the division of keywords based on the search objectives of internet users. Do not let your keywords mix with other topics "similar but not the same."
So, when you are going to determine the keywords of a website page, you need to consider them carefully.
For example, one of your tour and travel website contents discusses traveling to the City of Oxford, England, and you choose the word "Oxford" as a keyword.
When you use the word "Oxford" as a keyword, the search intent is not quite right. Because internet users who search for "Oxford" typically seek out websites containing information about the University of Oxford or the Oxford Online Dictionary and not travel-related information.
4. Topic Consistency
To build a website with a good structure, you must have content on topics that are relevant to the website's niche.
Search engines will find it easier to index your website when two or more contents of the website are interrelated.
5. Content Structure
In addition to creating interrelated content that fits the website's theme, you need to pay attention to the structure of the content.
In a piece of content it would be better if the arrangement is in the form of opening-content-closing and separated by headings so that the content will be read by search engines.
Don't forget to include photos, videos, or audio related to the content. Change the alt text in the multimedia file with the keywords used.
6. Meta Tags
Meta titles and descriptions are very important in SEO because they really help Google robots in recognizing the contents of your website pages.
You just write a short description of the outline of the content with interesting sentences. And ensure you don't forget to fill in this column.
7. Backlinks
Backlink is a term for links that point to your website.
Backlinks are used by Google robots to assess your website's quality and level of relevance.
So, the more credible websites that provide you with backlinks, the higher your ranking position on search engines.
One thing to remember is that backlinks from fake websites will actually reduce the credibility and ranking of your website on search engines.
So you should avoid optimization efforts through backlink spam.
8. Website Friendliness
A user-friendly website will get a better ranking. This is because visitors will feel comfortable while browsing the content of your website.
First, website friendliness is influenced by website loading speed.
When the website loads fast, the chances of visitors doing a bounceback (directly leaving the website before the page is completely loaded) are much lower.
Second, it is influenced by the appearance of the website. Websites that are mobile and desktop-friendly will be more comfortable to visit.
Because visitors feel comfortable on your website, search engines will increase website rankings.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the long description in this article on what SEO is can help you form a basic understanding of SEO.
Now is the time to apply what you have learned so that your website becomes more qualified and has more visitors.