Do you often hear about SEO but haven’t quite understood what it’s all about? Just like many technical terms, this one also needs to be explored to understand how it can be useful within your web marketing strategy.
Doing SEO is a challenging process, as it’s not always straightforward to do it correctly. It encompasses various strategies and activities aimed at facilitating search engines like Google in finding and reading your website’s content.
As you’ll see in the guide I’ve prepared, the goal is to improve organic positioning, that is, the unpaid results in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) present in the top 3-4 positions.
If you want to know how to leverage SEO optimization to increase the visibility of a hair salon, a restaurant, a clinic, or the services you offer on search engines, you just need to follow the guidelines I’ve prepared for you.
With these tips, you’ll have a foundation for successful SEO activity! And if you want, you can also request a tailored professional SEO consultation from us.
SEO for search engines: what is it and what is it for? Find out by reading below
When talking about SEO optimization, we’re referring to a set of techniques applied to the website. SEO, in fact, is an acronym that stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and refers to a series of practices aimed at driving conversions.
Unlike paid advertising, SEO is a tool that works with keywords and rules that help the website generate organic traffic, but over a longer period.
However, from this perspective, SEO is not only useful for search engine positioning but is also fundamental for guiding the “user during navigation” within the website.
Now let’s see how search engines like Google work
Before delving into all aspects of SEO, you need to understand how search engines work, and how they comprehend the content within the site.
How does Google think and process information? Although the factors that affect search engine ranking vary in weight based on semantics, at the core of Google’s search are three distinct phases:
- Scanning (crawling). Through a robot software (crawler or spider), Google scours the web to find new content and sites. When it finds a website, the spider reads it by scrolling through the pages with the links contained “within. From this perspective, the” objective of SEO is to facilitate its work by inserting a series of technical integrations into the site that you’ll see as you continue reading the guidelines.
- Indexing. Just as scanning is taking place, the spider stores the data it has read “within the search engine and releases it in order, based on the relevance to the keyword searched by the” user.
- Positioning/ranking. The results scanned by the search engine are returned to users in the form of a ranking within the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). This phase is defined as
ranking
and is influenced by over 200 factors.
Another aspect that should be emphasized for the purpose of optimizing a website on Google is that based on the feedback received from users, the search engine learns whether the results are useful and especially if they respond to the search intent.
Google Search and Algorithm: Everything You Need to Know
The search engine and the exact structure of the algorithm behind its operation are still a mystery. The latter, in fact, is constantly updated, but optimization guidelines are based only on Google’s statements and how the SERP changes.
Using the time difference of updates, which become effective first in the USA and only later in Europe, specific analyses on SEO optimization can be mapped.
How does the algorithm change over time?
If you’re wondering how “Google’s algorithm evolves, you just need to know that over the years, the factors that determine the” indexing of a website have consistently changed.
The updates to the functioning of Google search are continuous and do not stop.
It will be clear to you, then, that there is no magic wand to position yourself at the top of the SERP. However, from this guide, you can easily learn some essential information to avoid difficulties with your site when the next Google algorithm update occurs.
At the core, there are two essential factors: producing quality content and pages with good communication for “the user and” effective SEO optimization, but not only.
In addition to this, you must engage in all on-site SEO activities to ensure a reliable website with a search positioning that meets the requirements imposed by Google.
SEO Optimization Guide: What You Need to Know for a Winning Strategy
As we have seen, positioning on search engines is not at all “a simple activity, but” SEO optimization helps us precisely to enhance our strategy, obtaining winning results in the long term.
In this regard, if we base our strategies on the ranking and its known factors to date, we can distinguish two different types of intervention on website optimization, distinguishable in two different areas.
To increase traffic, in fact, it is possible to act on-site and off-site, but what’s the difference?
Both aspects are fundamental for good positioning within Google searches, but each tool has a different functioning and is based on different assumptions.
While on-site SEO is based on strategies aimed at “optimizing internal pages” of the website, off-page SEO consists of activities external to the site that aim to increase visibility and always use SEO as the main tool.
However, as you will see in this guide, at the heart of good search engine positioning can only be valid keyword research.
Keywords: How is SEO research done? Let’s see it together
Keyword research is the starting point for most effective SEO optimizations on websites.
The analysis of which are the best and most suitable keywords to describe our activity can be carried out with the support of different tools, from professional tools to search engine suggestions.
Among the most used professional tools for keyword research, I mention:
- Semrush;
- SEOZoom;
- Ahref;
- Google Ads Keyword Planner;
If you have understood what SEO is and how it works, it will also be clear to you that before performing the analysis of keywords to include in your activity, it is important to compare benchmark results. Only in this way, in fact, is it possible to evaluate the competitive situation within the SERP in the searches where you want to position yourself.
In this perspective, keyword research is also a fundamental service to guarantee results in terms of traffic and visibility.
Discover How to Choose Relevant Keywords in an SEO Strategy
You should know that it can be complicated to navigate between generic keywords with high search volumes and very specific queries.
In other words, while it’s true that, as with other aspects of Search Engine Optimization, there are no universal strategies, it is advisable, especially if your domain has low authority, to select various keywords favoring long tail
keywords.
If you’re wondering what this means, you just need to know that these words applied to SEO are identified as specific terms capable of effectively describing products and services offered through your website.
The underlying concept, in fact, aims to use words that will make you appear in fewer searches on search engines, but at the same time will have to compete less. This way, thanks to these words, you can achieve more qualified visibility in terms of users, since long tail words respond to very defined search intents.
Returning to our SEO strategy, once the keywords have been identified, it will be necessary to create perfectly optimized content and pages. This way you can effectively intercept users’ needs.
On-page SEO comes into play at this point, “the analysis that includes the site structure, as well as the distribution of content within” the page. Everything inside must be studied in detail, so as not to allow your site’s pages to compete for the same SERP, cannibalizing each other.
On-page SEO: Let’s see together what it is and what it includes
Are you approaching the world of SEO and want to know what on-page SEO consists of and what are the components to optimize within a website or an e-commerce?
Discover in the guide how to increase the visibility of your online project on Google without neglecting any fundamental element within. Only in this way can you make your products and services known to more people and potential customers.
From an operational point of view, doing quality SEO means intervening with some rules on four fundamental areas:
1. Keyword research and search queries
As we have already seen, before proceeding with the “SEO optimization of a website, you must start with the” analysis and definition of keywords for which you want to rank on the search engine.
These must be consistent with the users’ search intent, which is why it is essential to continuously study the SERP and examine the different content of other ranking sites.
An important step will also be to identify the most relevant queries to the service, scanning the suggested searches that appear among the top results.
To support you in this keyword research phase, there are some tools that can be used easily, such as Google Ads, SEOZoom, SemRush, and Ahrefs.
2. SEO Copywriting: What is it and what is it for?
SEO writing is important, as it must address two different aspects: on one hand, search engines and “the need to position the website well on Google, on” the other hand, the need to inform the target audience with unique and interesting pages and blog content.
Precisely for this reason, writing with SEO in mind means drafting a text taking into account the point of view of potential customers and users who browse the website to find answers to specific needs and various requirements.
The SEO Copywriting expert is the right support when you need to write texts that perform better, i.e., rank higher in the search engine SERP, allowing you to gain greater value in terms of Google ranking.
3. Content optimization: What does this fundamental SEO action mean?
In addition to SEO writing with the creation of blog texts and articles containing useful information and strategically relevant keywords, for optimization purposes it’s important not to underestimate other elements, such as text structure, image insertion, and the development of the right titles.
All these elements, in fact, help search engines position content in the SERP, ensuring better results and performance for your website.
Headings in SEO text: why are they important?
Headings allow search engines like Google to understand the information and content inserted in your online business and blog page and to classify it.
Based on the numbering that people choose to best construct their content, the hierarchy of information is organized.
It goes, in fact, from H1 (page content title) to H6 with increasing numbering for the different subtitles to be used within the sites.
To construct correct headings and position the article and text well in Google search, it’s good to keep these few rules in mind:
- H1 must be present in every section of the website. In addition to having unique content, each page must contain within it the keywords that best identify the section.
- H2, H3, etc. must respect the hierarchical order of information. These should then contain the description of what will be discussed.
The division into paragraphs in SEO-optimized text: why you shouldn’t write walls of words
To facilitate text reading and “information processing by users, it’s important to remember to divide the” article, or page, into paragraphs.
Using tags, then, you can highlight relevant concepts in bold within each paragraph to make reading even more fluid.
SEO-optimized images
Using quality images within sites allows texts to speak and contributes to positioning.
To optimize them for SEO, it’s good to remember some simple rules:
- select the file name;
- compress images and reduce sizes to reduce loading time (“particular attention in the case of product sheets for e” commerce!);
- always fill in the ALT text and Title section, using the keywords for which you want to position your page (avoiding forcing as much as possible). The ALT text is used to describe the content of images to the visually impaired or as a placeholder (in case the search engine fails to load the images).
Although it’s not obvious, it’s important not to underestimate the role of images for search engine positioning: these are also fundamental for your website’s conversions!
3. Technical SEO: what factors to consider?
When a search engine like Google scans and reads content “within a website, it favors not only quality texts and images, but is also attentive to the user experience of the” user and to all those technical SEO elements that ensure easy website navigation.
From internal architecture to page URLs, this SEO guide will examine the various fundamental elements of Technical SEO that are important to pay attention to.
The structure
Often underestimated, it’s about creating a tree structure where parts are connected to each other according to a hierarchy. It’s always good to avoid excessive page depth to allow the search engine bot to scan all sections.
SSL Certificate
An acronym for “Secure Sockets Layer”, it’s a protocol that allows the transmission of information in an encrypted and secure manner.
Robots.txt file
This is a text file that is inserted in the root folder of your website. The function of the robots.txt file is to communicate to search engines the content of the website: this, in fact, is read by the crawler and allows for better organization of content scanning.
Site Map
This web page lists all the sections that make up a site, facilitates user navigation, and aids search engine crawlers in scanning the network.
Website Speed
If you consider that 40% of visitors abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load, it’s easy to understand why it’s important to test the speed of your web project to ensure a good user experience.
Responsiveness and Mobile-First Factor
Now that it’s clear what SEO is, it’s also important to conduct an analysis on the user experience of your website. The latter, in fact, must be easy to navigate for the user, even in the mobile version (now among the most used).
Optimized URLs
Although it has a relative value in terms of ranking, this is one of the first factors to be read by Google, which is why it’s good to plan the URL structure in advance: these should contain keywords and be “meaningful”.
Meta Description
Along with the title, this element captures users’ attention. While it’s true that it doesn’t directly affect positioning within search engines, it’s still important to drive the click-through rate. For this reason, each page must be associated with an optimized description, using relevant keywords.
Internal links
Once you’ve studied the website’s tree structure and its layout, it’s good to build connections between the site’s pages through internal links, thus guiding the user in reading each section. Attention! Taking care of how different pages relate to each other allows you to hierarchically order information, giving more strength to one page over another, and this is precisely the function of internal links.
What SEO Means and Off-Page Optimization. Everything You Need to Know
As you’ve seen so far in the SEO guide, there are many elements to consider when optimizing your site’s pages: from defining keywords to curating SEO-friendly textual content.
However, only through effective communication that passes through your site is it possible to increase ranking in searches and increase the visibility of your services to potential clients present on the web.
In addition to the aspects we’ve seen that include on-page SEO optimization, it’s also good to now consider those actions that are not performed directly on the sites, but which necessarily influence search engines.
External signals, in fact, are important as they indicate to search engines what users’ perception of a website is, increasing the reliability and authority of the latter.
1. SEO and Link Building: Why Is It Important for Your Site’s Positioning?
This technique aims to increase the number of links to a page and can be a winning strategy to increase your site’s domain authority.
From this point of view, it’s important to emphasize how quality has an important value, and for this reason, a link from an authoritative site is more valuable than many links from less authoritative sites.
To ensure a link building activity that guarantees you good results, there are some strategies you can carry out in your link building campaign.
Link Profile
This is a detailed report that includes every resource linking to your site.
Link Prospecting
In this phase, it’s necessary to find authoritative sources on which to publish backlinks;
Outreach
In this phase, instead, direct contact is made with the owners of the sites chosen for publishing backlinks.
Content Production
To increase the authority of your site, it’s important to produce quality content that can be of different types, such as informative articles, infographics, guides, eBooks, videos, reviews, and more.
Monitoring
Finally, when proceeding with the link building campaign, it’s good to analyze the backlinks that have been acquired, but also to analyze those lost and their quality.
2. Social Networks and Interactions: How They Influence SEO
Today, social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok have become important communication channels for consumers who consult essential information on websites and social media before purchasing a service.
For this reason, it’s important to create social media pages and implement a social marketing strategy on the relevant channel for your target audience and to curate your content and image.
In addition to this, it’s good to regularly monitor what is being said about your brand, so you can react to any criticisms raised by users.
On the SEO side, while it’s true that page rankings on search engines are not influenced by interactions on your social media posts, it’s a fact that if a post is clicked by numerous people, shared, and commented on, its reach increases, as does visibility and traffic to the reference sites.
Special attention should be given to customer reviews on social media: people, in fact, not only trust the information shared on pages but pay particular attention to other customers’ experiences.
Why Forums Are Useful for SEO Optimization
Although in the past this tool was not well-regarded by search engines, today forums can influence the perception of a brand on the web and constitute an off-page SEO channel.
These tools, in fact, can help your site and your brand build its reputation as an expert, guaranteeing good results as long as you do a preliminary analysis.
It’s important, in fact, to first identify the forums where users ask questions about your market segment or niche, and then participate in these conversations, creating a connection with the community.
Reviews: How to Use Them for Your Web Marketing Strategy
In addition to being an excellent marketing tool, reviews are also an important aspect of maintaining your online reputation.
These, in fact, improve the click-through rate and visibility of sites, helping search engines understand your site’s content.
For this reason, remember: the more reviews you have on Google My Business, the better your brand will be positioned online on search engines.
SEO Audit: Why It’s Important for Your Strategy to Know Every Detail of Your Website
After understanding all the SEO aspects that affect positioning in search engine results, it’s good to also delve into another essential element to ensure excellent results, but one that is too often underestimated.
The “SEO Audit on websites is a”detailed analysis of your site’s pages which, if performed regularly, allows you to get a picture of possible technical problems and all those factors that prevent Google from correctly classifying the site’s content.
Thanks to this step, you’ll be able to analyze the SEO present on the web and understand which are the areas for improvement to increase your ranking on search engines.
For this important part of SEO activity, you can get help from an SEO Specialist, who in addition to guiding you on the choice of the most appropriate keywords can support you in the analysis and control phase of all these aspects:
- competitor analysis;
- keyword research;
- SEO-friendly content;
- presence of SEO penalties;
- technical problems/errors.
SEO and eCommerce: What to Know to Make the Most of the Many Opportunities
If you have an online store and you’re wondering what SEO is and if it can help your site, the answer is yes: this tool, if well adapted to your reality and integrated with a content marketing strategy on a company blog, allows you to increase your brand awareness.
However, to be found by people in your target audience, it’s important not only to create detailed informative content that tells about the specificity of your store but also to do a keyword analysis that allows you to stand out from the competition and other online sales sites.
Although the focus is often on paid advertising and social media, SEO for e-commerce, when used correctly, allows you to increase your organic traffic, thus affecting the costs of paid advertising, which will no longer be as necessary when visits to your site increase.
How to build a successful strategy for online sales sites? From keyword research for positioning to page structure for user usability, the rules don’t differ much from SEO for other websites.
Discover the steps for successful SEO on eCommerce. Keep reading
Would you like to improve your e-commerce positioning but don’t know where to start? Follow these steps to begin experimenting with SEO:
- Competitor analysis. Have you ever wondered what sets your site apart from another? Besides the content produced, have you ever analyzed the keywords used by competitors?
- Keyword research. The keyword is fundamental because it allows you to understand
the search intent that the user types in the search engine bar when looking for a specific product. This is why a winning SEO strategy cannot ignore
keyword analysis. - Site structure. Take care of this aspect and every page of your web project. The pages, in fact, should be clear and contain all the information and useful words to answer the user’s search.
- Product descriptions and SEO Copywriting. Don’t forget that the content of each page should be written with extreme care. The content should contain the keywords chosen for the site optimization; only then can the SEO strategy be successful.
As you can see, the elements to focus on for “optimization are the same as for a classic site. Even if the content and structure of the pages will be different, the key points to work on are always the same and respond on one hand to users and their questions, and on the” other to search engines.
Who handles SEO and strategies for positioning your website?
Now that you understand how important it is to use SEO to optimize your site, with keyword research and creating content useful for ranking well on Google, you’re probably wondering if there’s a specific professional figure who does this work.
The answer is yes: the SEO Specialist, in general, is the one who professionally handles everything related to SEO and site optimization.
From page structures to finding the right keywords to use, their goal is to make a digital property effective, from the point of view of “authority and positioning within the” SERP.
While it’s true that you can learn to do a basic keyword analysis for your site’s pages even without being an expert in the field, to get concrete results on the site by listening to users and creating ad hoc content that meets their needs, it’s better to rely on a good SEO Specialist.
How to become an SEO expert capable of optimizing a website?
Today there are numerous specific courses available for those who wish to learn how to use SEO to increase a website’s visibility.
For those who are graduating in digital marketing and want to specialize, for example, there are webinars and technical seminars held by industry experts with theoretical and practical content, so you can immediately put your skills into practice.
In any case, it can also help to read books and research content from authoritative blogs in the “field, also to stay up to date on Google and the evolution of” algorithms.
However, what really counts is not just theory, but especially practice: only by experimenting and working on a site and positioning projects can you obtain concrete feedback.
Make the most of SEO in your web marketing strategy and increase organic traffic
As we have seen, the SEO optimization of a website allows for excellent positioning in Google’s SERP and creates content that meets users’ search queries.
If you have an online shop and want to convert users who land on your site into customers, it will undoubtedly be helpful, just as it will be if you have a company website and wish to increase visits to your domain and the “authority of your brand.”
It is therefore clear that an effective web marketing strategy today cannot ignore Search Engine Optimization: as you have seen in our guide, we apply this working method daily to every site of our clients, improving sales performance and ranking.
If you too want to build an SEO strategy but don’t know where to start, contact us!
