Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a critical component of digital marketing, essential for increasing a website’s visibility and attracting organic traffic.
This article delves into the five fundamentals of SEO, offering insights and strategies that are key to understanding and leveraging this dynamic field. From the nuances of keyword research to the intricacies of backlink profiles, we explore the core principles that underpin successful SEO practices.
Whether you’re a business looking to improve your SEO or an individual wanting to learn more, these foundational concepts provide a roadmap for navigating the complex and often misunderstood world of search engine optimisation.
1. Content and Keywords
The first of Google’s SEO fundamentals is content and keywords. For potential customers and visitors of your website to find your website in Google search results, your content must have keywords that match or relate to their query.
Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. Regarding SEO, they’re the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines to discover content.
For example, if someone puts “Google Ads business Brisbane” into Google search, your content must have that keyword or related keywords scattered throughout your content.
When it comes to keywords and content, there are some key areas on your website/webpage where you should place your keywords, such as
- URL
- Title tags
- Page title (H1)
- Subheadings (H2)
- Body of your content
Once you’ve chosen specific keywords for each page and primary keywords for your overall website, it’s time to publish content matching the keywords.
2. Technical SEO
Technical SEO is about making sure your site can be crawled and indexed. If search engines can’t crawl or index your site, it will struggle to rank.
How do you set up your site so that it can be crawled and indexed?
2.1. Set up Google Search Console
Connect your website to Google Search Console if you haven’t done so already.
Free from Google, Google Search Console is a fantastic tool that helps you identify any problems Google may have when indexing or crawling your site.
It also provides solutions to those problems, ensuring your site can be found on Google, and you can continue your SEO efforts to rank on search engines.
2.2. Optimise your site speed
What happens when a webpage loads too slowly? You click out of the tab and try to find a faster website. We’ve all done it, but you don’t want it happening to your website.
Having a slow site means a higher bounce rate and lower conversion rate, which can negatively impact your SEO performance. Also, site speed is a direct ranking factor that Google uses in their algorithm. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to check your website’s speed. When you put in your website, it comes up with a score from 0 to 100. The higher the number, the better your page speed.
There are several things you can do to improve your website speed, such as
- Compressing your images
- Minify CSS and JavaScript files
- Limit redirect usage
- Use effective third-party services for essential website functions
2.3. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
With everything right at your fingertips when using a mobile phone, it’s no surprise that mobile browsing is becoming just as, if not more, popular than desktop browsing.
Due to this, your website must be compatible with mobile devices. To check if your website is mobile-friendly, click on the “Mobile Usability” report in Google Search Console.
3. User Experience
User experience (UX) refers to the overall experience of a searcher/user exploring your website. User experience has a direct and indirect impact on SEO.
If you have a bad user experience on your website, users will spend less time on your site, resulting in a high bounce rate and low conversion rate. Due to this, it suggests to Google that your site isn’t worthy of being on the first page of SERPs. On the other hand, if you have a fantastic UX, Google will see that users are spending more time on your site and will reward that by improving your rankings.
User experience can indirectly affect SEO because great UX shows others that your site is a helpful resource, leading to an increase in backlinks.
4. Backlinks
Leading on from the above, backlinks are one of Google’s SEO fundamentals as they help build your site’s authority in the eyes of Google.
So, what is a backlink? A backlink is when another website adds a link to your website in their content. As long as the site linking back to yours is relevant, its link can help your site rank higher on Google.
But how do you get people to link back to your site?
- Write guest posts
- Reach out to journalists
- Write quality content
5. Measure of Success
Now that you’re putting Google SEO fundamentals to work, how can you measure your success?
5.1. Keyword Rankings
An important part of SEO is knowing which keywords are working well and which ones aren’t. Therefore, you need to utilise a quality platform where you can track your keywords.
You can track your average keyword rankings for free in Google Search Console. However, if you want a more accurate ranking tool, you can use Ahrefs or SEMrush.
5.2. Search Traffic
To see how much traffic you are getting from search results, you can use Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a fantastic free tool where you can find out where your website visitors are coming from and what search engine they’re using.
5.3. Conversions from Organic Traffic
On top of using Google Analytics as a tool to find how much traffic is coming from search results, you can also use it to see how many of those visitors are from Google’s organic results.
If your organic traffic numbers are increasing, that indicates that your SEO is working and your content resonates with your target audience.
However, if your organic traffic numbers are down, it may mean that you’re targeting overly competitive keywords, your site may have some technical SEO issues, or your site may just need some more time to start seeing SEO results.
Get More Than The Basics of SEO with Anchor Digital
Search engine optimisation is a critical component of modern digital marketing, intricately tied to how we navigate the online world.
With five important Google SEO fundamentals, it can be daunting trying to navigate SEO yourself. That’s where we come in.
At Anchor, our experienced and dedicated team of digital marketers have the tools and knowledge to skyrocket your business to the top of organic search results.
Want to learn more? Drop us a line today.
