Five Common Questions about SEO
At first glance, I thought I knew what SEO was all about. I knew it stood for search engine optimization and I knew that better SEO would lead to a higher rank on search engines. As it turns out, there is a lot to learn about SEO techniques, especially for a beginner.
So let’s talk about all of the immediate SEO questions that can cause some confusion.
What is SEO?
SEO is an acronym that stands for search engine optimization. It refers to techniques that help your website or blog post become more visible in organic search results for the people who are looking for your brand, product, or service via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
There are a ton of components to improving the SEO of your site pages.These search engines look for elements including title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links. Search engines also look at site structure and design, visitor behavior, and other external, off-site factors to determine how highly ranked your site should be in the search engine results pages. It's true, no single aspect can guarantee great results but when all aspects are used together, you can expect great results.
What’s a good goal to set for your SEO?
When you think about your goal for SEO, avoid thinking about how many more visits you’re getting to your website. Instead, think about the broader marketing funnel and how much quality traffic you’re getting to your website or blog. When you begin to set new goals for SEO, consider these questions: Are the people who are finding your website through SEO actually qualified prospects for your business? If not, does it really matter that the traffic to your website has increased?
As you create your goals, consider what general traffic vs. quality traffic means to you. Set goals not just based on traffic, but based on the entirety of your marketing funnel.
How do I know if I’m using the right amount of keywords on a page?
Before you create a new site page or blog post, you will probably be thinking about how to incorporate your keywords into your post. This shouldn't be your only focus and it might not even be your primary focus. There’s no specific keyword density you should be aiming for. Whenever you create content, your focus should be on what matters to your audience, not how many times you can include a keyword or keyword phrase in that content. Using a keyword too frequently in a post can result in penalization due to “keyword stuffing.”
Understanding your target audience and what interests them is essential to attracting relevant visitors to your website through search engines. If you keep the reader in mind and only use keywords when necessary, you will find enough natural opportunities.
What is a Meta Description?
A meta description is the text that appears below your page in a search engine result. Meta descriptions are used to explain what the page is all about. In the past, they were used to optimize for keywords so crawlers would know more about your page contents; however, now the focus is on creating something compelling that makes readers want to visit your website or blog.
How long does it take to see results from SEO?
There are several different factors that determine how quickly results will come. Ultimately, positive results are based on: how much content you create, the quality of the content, how well the content resonates with your audience, and the size of your site.
A large site could possibly see results in a few days if a search engines is crawling their site regularly. Generally, smaller sites take longer because they get crawled less frequently. When search engines look through the content on your website, they are crawling your site. As they crawl your site, they index content that will appear in the search engine. If you are nervous about the results, wait at least a week (maybe closer to a month) before you consider changing your SEO strategy. Adding fresh and creative content regularly is the best way to guarantee results from SEO.
