SEO Tips for Beginners

If money were no object, every organization would have a team member who was responsible for bringing traffic to the organization’s website. That person would constantly be looking for and connecting with potential customers who need the organization’s products or services. He would make sure everyone knew that the organization was the top option in its field. And he would work 24-7.

What most organizations do not know is they can have that person right now. For free. Except that it is not a person. It is a tool called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is the practice of optimizing online content to improve organic traffic and ranking on search engines. Regardless of the product or service that your organization provides, you are already preparing and posting content with the hopes of attracting and informing potential customers.

Search engine optimization allows you to make sure that content gets in front of the right people. By paying close attention to a handful of variables most organizations ignore, SEO communicates to search engines that you are the best choice for those searching. 

While SEO is a moving target that can take years to master, here are some tips that anyone can begin to apply to improve their SEO and put it to work for their organization or you may talk to an SEO Specialist here. 

SEO Tip One: Do your research

To do SEO right, you need to be familiar with what keywords are and how they work. When someone does a search on Google, Bing, or another search engine, they type in what is known as a “search term.” Search terms contain keywords that help the search engine direct the user to relevant content.

If you run a business that sells coffee mugs, for example, you need to know what keywords are being used most often by people who are shopping for coffee mugs and make sure that those keywords are found in key places in your online content. By doing that, you optimize the connection that you make with the search engine.

A wide variety of resources exist that can help you with researching keywords. They include online platforms like SpyFu or AnswerThePublic that allow you to enter a keyword and see how it is being used. Entering “coffee mug” into SpyFu gives you stats on how often it is being searched, related keywords, and how much competition you will have as you start trying to increase your rank for that keyword in search engine results.

“Once you do your research and determine what keyword makes sense for your product or services, make sure that keyword appears often in your content, especially in a page’s headings and subheadings, but not too often,” explains Devin Leonardi, Marketing Director for Otter PR. “There is a fine line between packing your content with keywords and overpacking your content with keywords. Crossing that line can do damage to your SEO efforts.”

Otter PR, one of the nation’s top public relations firms. Devin provides Otter and its clients with strategies for developing and nourishing targeted, funnel-based systematic web traffic that converts.

“If you can take your SEO to the next level by optimizing for long tail keywords, which are keyword phrases that include more than two words,” Devin says. “Long tail keywords typically provide a lower difficulty rating in terms of SEO ranking, which means you have a better chance of rising above your competition.”

SEO Tip Two: Create high-quality, enriched content

When optimizing your content for SEO, it is important to keep in mind that you are writing for two audiences: the potential customer and the search engine.

To make sure that you capture the attention of the potential customer, make sure that your content is high-quality. It should be original, researched, relevant, and thoughtfully crafted to deliver quality to the reader.

To make sure that you capture the attention of the search engine, it should be enriched with the right keywords, helpful headings that feature keywords, backlinks, and metadata, all of which communicates to the search engine that your article was designed to provide helpful solutions to its users.

“There was a time when you could rank high in search engine results by simply focusing on the search engine. In recent years, this has changed in a way that has made great content just as important as enriched content,” says Devin. “Search engines still want to see that your content is enriched, but they now also want to see that it is helpful to the reader. If someone clicks on your link, but does not spend time with, share, or link to your content, it will not continue to be seen by the search engine as a helpful link.”

SEO Tip Three: Encourage linking and sharing

Links to your content is another element that search engines use to determine its quality. When multiple sites link to you, search engines assume that your content is more helpful than content without links.

Links can come from other websites, such as blogs that feature your content or clients who promote your products or services, or social media, where your fans and followers might share links to your content. To optimize for SEO, do whatever you can to get links to your content.

These three simple SEO tips will help you to begin your SEO journey. Making them a part of your online content strategy will allow you to leverage the power of search engines to promote your brand and connect with new customers 24-7.