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| Image by Firmbee from Pixabay |
SEO 101: How to Make a Website on Google's Front Page 1.
Understanding SEO
● SEO & SEM differences:
○ SEM: has the label "Ads" or "Ads" in front of the listings on search engines or search engines;
○ SEO: is below the SEM results and without the label "Ads" or "Ads".
● SEO is important for every digital marketer to master, because:
○ Highest RoI, free traffic;
○ Advertising costs through SEM continues to increase.
● SEO is a digital marketing channel, so before mastering SEO, it is important to know the general concept of digital marketing.
● Important mindset to be mastered by every digital marketers:
○ problem solving,
○ data analysis & critical thinking,
○ fast learning.
● General digital marketing campaign steps / workflows:
○ plan & hypothesis,
○ execution,
○ data gathering,
○ data analysis,
○ insight.
● General SEO process:
○ keyword research;
○ on-page optimization;
○ off-page optimization;
○ measurement & analysis.
2. Research Keyword Research
● The output of keyword research is a list of keywords that are relevant to our business, along with their average monthly search volume.
● Some concepts related to keywords:
○ Type of keywords based on the purchase intent:
■ informational,
Transactional,
■ navigational.
○ Long tail vs short tail:
■ short tail (1-2 words, sometimes up to 3 words): high traffic, high competition, but lack of purchase intent (because it is too broad);
■ long tail (3+ words): low traffic, low competition, more purchase intent (because it is more specific).
● Criteria for keywords that are used as target keywords:
○ is relevant to what our business has to offer.
● Steps to do keyword research:
○ specify "seed keywords", from our business / website offerings and from asking target users what keywords they are looking for on Google;
○ validate by typing in Google;
○ Use tools to get search volume and related keywords. One of them is Uber Suggest from NeilPatel.com. Apart from keyword research, this tool can also be used for competitor research;
○ enter the keywords from the previous step one by one into this tool;
○ download the result, along with the related keywords from the initial keyword;
○ compile the results and do the analysis until we get the keywords according to the criteria;
○ The final result is a list of keywords. Each of these keywords will have its own page.
Competitive Research
● The ultimate goal of competitor research is to find out the competitors' SEO strategies.
● Results / outcomes of competitor research:
○ list of our competitors,
○ keywords that drive traffic to competitors' websites,
○ competitor content strategy,
○ backlinks that competitors get.
● Process that needs to be passed in competitor research:
○ enter the target keywords into search engines;
○ note the top 3 to 5 of each keyword;
○ open one by one, see what competitors are offering on their website: such as the title, description, URL, content, special features, special offers, and so on;
○ open Uber Suggest, enter the url of the competitor. The menus on Uber Suggest show a variety of things from the competitors:
■ "Keywords" - to see the keywords entered on their website. From here, we can get an idea of what keywords to add to our target keyword list,
■ "Top Pages" - to see which pages are getting the most traffic,
■ "Backlinks" - to see where their backlinks are from.
3. On-Page Optimization
● There are two parts that need to be done in on-page optimization: content and technical.
Creating EAT-able, High Quality and Unique Content
● Content on-page optimization means making our website pages the best in the eyes of search engines. Good criteria based on Google's search engine evaluator guidelines, can be abbreviated as EAT, namely:
○ Expert: for the topic / target keyword that we are looking for, our page contains comprehensive, detailed, and easy to understand content;
○ Authoritative: for the topic / target keyword that we are looking for, our website has the authority to discuss that topic, for example a health website written by a doctor;
○ Trusted: our website can be trusted, for example by using a professional template, using HTTPS, there is a 24-hour Customer Service, and so on.
● How to create an EAT-able content design:
○ Identify the top 3-5 competitors for the keywords we are looking for;
○ Open each website one by one, then see what the content looks like: outline / sub-topic of the content, website features, services / offerings, and so on;
○ Compare the content of competitors' websites. For example competitor x has content A-B-C-D (where A, B, C, etc. are sub-topics or features or services owned by the competitor), competitor y has content A-B-C-E, and competitor z has content A-B-D-E;
○ From here at least we can see that A-B-C-D-E content is the minimum requirement for the content we have. However, we must be creative in making content plans, for example by designing A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I content to be more complete and comprehensive.
Technical Part of SEO
● Some of the most important technical on-page optimization sections:
○ Meta title. Is a ranking factor. The first thing a user sees before deciding to click.
Each page must be unique, there cannot be two pages with the same title;
Contain the target keyword in front;
Maximum of 50-60 characters, including space and brand name at the end;
Click-baity (get people to click).
○ Meta description. The meta title is limited in length, so the meta description is complementary.
Contains target keywords (later bolded by search engines);
Have a reason why users should click on that one compared to competitors;
Maximum 150 characters.
○ URL. www.domain.com/articles/foto-pre-wedding is better than www.domain.com/post/12345, because it makes users and search engines understand the contents of the page just by looking at the URL.
Must contain target keywords;
Use a dash / "-" instead of a space;
Don't be too long, just try 3-5 words.
○ Internal linking. Notifying search engines that there are other pages on your website, reduces the bounce rate. Use the target keywords of the destination page as anchor text.
○ Heading structure. There needs to be heading 1, heading 2, heading 3, and so on.
○ Mobile friendly. 70-80% of users access the website from a mobile phone. Mobile first indexing.
○ Fast loading. Users & search engines like fast websites. There is a website to test loading speed & give improvement suggestions such as pages speed insight.
4. Off-Page Optimization
● Not all links are the same in the eyes of search engines. There are backlinks that can increase our website ranking or even make our website disappear.
● There are several important concepts about links:
○ Links from popular websites are more valuable than websites in the middle of nowhere;
○ Links from new domains are more valuable than links from new pages from existing domains;
○ Links that bring user traffic (meaning that a user clicks, not just a link from a website that has no visitors) is more valuable;
○ The link in the body content (where the user reads the content) is more valuable than the link in the footer or sidebar (because it is rarely clicked);
○ Links that are easy to get, are usually less valuable. For example, 1,000 links using SEO software are far less valuable than 1 link from Detik.com.
● Black hat SEO: prohibited by search engines, the backlink is intended to trick search engines, not to help users.
● White hat SEO: The link is not obtained by buying / giving money / monetary value directly to another website.
● Gray hat SEO: no clear black or white. Not really outsmarting like a black hat, but also not completely without money like a white hat. Many SEO practitioners still use these methods, because their impact is also proven.
● Some of the most common white hat SEO strategies:
○ Our own social media accounts. Create a profile on various social media (Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.), provide a link on his profile, and regularly share our website content there;
○ Blog commenting on the community that is relevant to our website content;
○ Guest posting. Contribute posts to other blogs;
○ User generated content websites: kompasiana, indonesiana, medium;
○ Online forums / groups / QA sites, according to the niche of our website;
○ Become an expert, through interviews. Becoming the face of your business;
○ Public Relations (PR) and other positive publications;
○ Create resource content that can be a reference;
○ From our own stakeholders / business partners.
5. Measurement & Analysis
● There are 3 metrics to monitor:
○ Ranking. at least our ranking there must be a track up from time to time;
○ Traffic. The number of visitors entering should increase over time;
○ Conversion (if our website has transactions) must also increase;
● How to monitor these metrics:
○ Ranking: using the "keyword ranking tracker" tool. Tools that will automatically check the search engines what our keyword ranking is;
○ Traffic: what's the meaning of a ranking if no real people access our website. There are 2 ways to track our traffic: Google Analytics (Acquisition menu - Channel Overview - Organic Search) and Google Search Console (Performance menu);
○ Conversion: most commonly via Google Analytics which has goal tracking enabled.
