How To Do SEO?​

If you’re eager to master Search Engine Optimization (SEO), this guide is your go-to resource. How to do SEO? It covers everything from SEO basics to advanced strategies, outlining essential considerations and effective techniques. Engaging with this content will give you valuable insights and actionable knowledge that will enhance your SEO skills and boost your online visibility.

I can attest that SEO is precious work. It provides unmatched insights into what people want and what they’re actively searching for online. Through strategic optimization, this area of study offers you a comprehensive understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences.

I can tell you that while results vary across industries, organic traffic is one of the most significant sources of incoming visitors. The conversion rate will depend on the strategies you implement through your work. In other words, prioritizing conversions over sheer traffic volume is the most effective approach for success.

Search engines are where people go to ask precise questions.

People turn to search engines with queries like “How do I set things up?” “How do I find things?” or “What is it?” They seek answers to these questions from the search engine results.

How To Do SEO

SEO is simply a set of studies that will help to bring your question to the forefront. However, the answer you give must be the best answer. Your answer should appear in the first part of the search engine results page and that’s how people should visit your site.

This article will focus on the elements you need to focus on to achieve success in search engines. This is technically called on-site SEO and the work is all about making search engines recognize your site better. What you will learn in this article briefly covers the following topics:

1- Keyword Identification and Placement.

2- Producing Content

3- SERP and Competitor Analysis

4- Correct Meta and Title Usage

5- Page Load Speed

6- URL Structure

7- Image Optimization

8- Mobile SEO

9- Links

This content will help you understand the basics of SEO. For this reason, we will take care to include the most explanatory information on all topics.

Even if you don’t do the work yourself, this guide is written in a language that everyone can understand, so you can share your strategies and work with everyone. All of the information you get from this article is derived from tried and tested information. You can have the opportunity to do this work either from a company, from your own office, or from your home.

Two Different Aspects of SEO

Ensuring that your site and its content get better places in search engines is about working in two different areas. Many commercial sites or personal sites cannot achieve the results they want by applying SEO studies incorrectly. Many people want to get very fast results from these studies, but it is not possible to fulfill this request. People with such thoughts try to achieve immediate results by applying a few tactics, but they do not see the big picture.

If there are people trying to sell you services in this way, be wary of them. Stay away from places that promise to bring your site to the top in a short time with a secret formula. People who want to achieve such fast results resort to cheap tactics and manipulation of search engines. SEO work is challenging, detailed, and needs to be done correctly.

There are two different aspects of SEO work. One aspect is called on-site SEO and the other is called off-site SEO. On-site work is related to keywords, content, technical situations, and structural elements. Off-site work is related to social media links, brand awareness, and authoritative signals.

On-Site SEO Activities

On-site SEO work is about everything you can control and change on your site. For this reason, the ideal point to start SEO work is on-site work. The most ideal thing that can be said about on-site SEO is that it involves maximizing the investment in SEO efforts. So what are the studies that will ensure the highest return on investment?

Keyword Definition

Keyword identification and placement are the core work. Before you start, you should be clear and precise about keywords. You can consider the following factors when thinking about keywords.

1- Search Volume

Search volume shows the number of monthly searches for a keyword or keyword group. This may seem foreign to some people, but for those with SEO experience, it’s a very familiar experience. Search volume shows you how your customers behave or how they intend to behave. If you want to get maximum efficiency from SEO work, you should examine these behaviors thoroughly. In a short time, your reviews will give results, you will know how to collect data for content and your SEO efforts will start to give the results you expect.

One of the best tools you can use to find keywords is known as Google Keyword Planner. When using the keyword tool, you should focus on finding the keywords that have the highest monthly traffic value, that is, the keywords that will bring the most traffic. It is not possible to talk about exact words or numbers in this regard because the values of keywords from niche to niche vary.

Doing SEO work for keywords that have no search volume at all will not gain you anything. However, you will waste your time. Orient your site based on the data and try to speak the language that customers speak.

2- Competition

The next thing to consider is how difficult it will be to rank on the first page. For this, you can use tools that provide data on keyword competition. Keyword competition is calculated by taking into account many different attributes of a keyword.

  • What is the monetization status of a keyword? The more money a keyword is being monetized, the more competitive that keyword is.
  • What is the search volume of the keyword?
  • Are big brands ranking first and second in the results for the search term?

When you consider these elements, the result will tell you the following truth. You can rank for any keyword you want, but you need to have enough time and resources. If your chosen keyword has big brands or publishers on the first pages of the search results, then you can instantly recognize that the keyword is highly competitive. Ranking for such highly competitive keywords requires huge investments.

At this point, the importance of a good SEO expert comes to the fore. In order to find keywords that small businesses and people with limited budgets can target, you need to work with an experienced person who knows what the most appropriate work can be done in this field.

3- Purpose

The purpose for selecting a keyword or keyword bundle is as valuable as the search volume. Purpose simply means what you can do for the searcher. At this point, you need to approach it in a way that understands human psychology.

For example, the keyword small business expresses a weak purpose. The keyword marketing tools for small businesses imply a strong intent.

Think about what the reason for searching for a small business would be. Who would search for that? Who might search for it? Probably no one. The reasons why people call are of no use to you. However, for small businesses, marketing tools are a much more meaningful reason to call. Why might the caller have called this? It’s quite simple. The caller is a small business owner or someone who works in marketing. The result? As a result, you’ve found a keyword to focus on.

Now, let’s put together the qualities we’ve learned up to this point. If we look at high search volume keywords, the small business keyword will have a lot of traffic but is unlikely to convert. Whereas “marketing tools for small businesses”, where competition is low and conversions are likely to be high, is the search term to watch and focus on.

Keywords that are weak in intent, such as the small business keyword, will not bring you any traffic. Marketing tools for small businesses, which are long-tailed and meaningful at the same time, indicate high intent.

Notice that we have used the same keywords at two different points. The main reason for this is to make it easier to explain. Even if the search volume of the keyword you will determine is high, that is, the amount of traffic is high, this keyword may be unlikely to bring traffic. You need to research this thoroughly with the analyzes you have done and decide accordingly.

High-Quality Content

When creating content for SEO, you need to consider four different elements. Often one or two of these four elements are neglected. Remember that search engines are trying to provide the user with the best content for the specified queries. Search results are like a product of the search engine. For this reason, search engine companies always strive to optimize their results. As a result, they always try to find the best in content.

The better the content they provide to the user, the more the user is likely to search for it in the relevant search engines. These are the basic operating principles of search engines. Therefore, quality content is not an option but a necessity.

Keywords

We’ve talked about the basic requirements for keyword selection, and now we’ll look at how to insert the selected keywords into the content.

When search engines were algorithmically weak, it was easy to fool them. Keyword stuffing was a known and practiced strategy. The results were positive, but the results that users saw were not of the quality they expected, but content created by keyword stuffing.

Search engines can now recognize such manipulative methods. Search engines now penalize you if you overuse keywords. In this regard, you should be more creative and place keywords in the content in the most ideal way.

Keywords are still used by search engines. Search engines use these words to determine what the content is about. They have the ability to understand the content even without keywords. So what is your role at this point? You can attract search engines by using keywords, but you have to do it in a meaningful way.

The keyword you use must be in a natural position in the text. This way you can send a signal to search engines and tell them what the content is about. In addition, you can make your article much better by using supporting keywords. The only thing you should pay attention to is to use keywords as naturally as possible.

Long-tailed Keywords

Long-tail keywords are keywords that have a lower search volume than short keywords in general and come together from several words. Marketing is a keyword. How to create a marketing plan for small businesses is a long-tail keyword.

Using long-tail keywords in content is the best way to capture certain specific queries. No matter how low the search volume is, click-through rates and conversions are high because searchers are able to find what they want.

  • Keep them natural. Long-tail keywords should be used wherever they make sense.
  • You should take care to use the keyword at the appropriate points as much as possible.
  • You should comply with grammar rules.
  • Do not stuff keywords into the content. You may be penalized.
  • Ensure that long-tail keywords are used in a way that goes in the same direction as the content.

Length

Content length is one of the critical elements for search engines. There is no such thing as an ideal content length because the ideal length varies according to different fields and strategies.

If the content you create is really short or weak, it is not possible to rank with this content. Your content that cannot rank is not found useful and useful enough by search engines.

If your content is short, you may face this situation. At this point, you should definitely review the results on the first page for your target keyword to determine how long the content you create should be.

If the content on the first page is as long as possible, for example in the range of 1000-2000 words, then you need to offer longer and more useful content to compete. However, you should not try to add words to a piece of content just for the sake of word count, because the words you add will be meaningless unless they add value.

Authenticity

The fastest way to get your site penalized is to use duplicate content. Search engines hate duplicate content. If you want to write good content, you have to make a lot of effort. The method used by users who do not want to make this effort is to try to move forward by copying the content they find to their own sites.

You should devote as much of your time and effort as possible to addressing your own audience with your own content. If you want to make sure that you are not creating duplicate content, you can try searching search engines for a few sentences from the content you have created.

There should be no duplicate content on any of your pages. Every piece of content you create should be original. Even if you have to work hard to ensure this, you should do it. This is a big requirement if you want to gain a foothold in the search engines.

Value

Unlike the other attributes mentioned, this is a more personal approach. However, the value attribute should always be part of your strategy. Search engines are getting better every day and can now distinguish between good content and bad content.

If your content is of good quality, it should be able to provide the desired answer to queries. The biggest return of this is to achieve the desired ranking. If the content gives users the values they want, they can get the opportunity to rank high in search engines.

Metadata

Titles and Description

Metadata, or metadata as it is technically called, is HTML code that provides information about a page to users and search engines. Over the years, many different and more useful metadata have emerged. In this article, two different metadata related to our topic will be discussed and their values in terms of SEO will be included.

These two important metadata are known as Title Tag and Description Tag. These two tags provide clear information about the page to the user and the search engine.

Title Tag

Title tags are the most important SEO element on a page. A title tag is part of the HTML code. The purpose is to describe the link to the page to search engines. Search engines rank the page based on the words and keywords you use in this tag.

The most ideal uses for the title tag are as follows:

  • The length should be between 50-60 characters. Any length above this will cause certain parts to be cut off in search engine results.
  • In the first part of the title tag, you should definitely include the first, basic keyword.
  • You must use a unique title tag for each page.

Remember, the title tag will not appear everywhere on the page. They will only appear on the search engine results page and in your browser’s tab information.

Description Tag

The description text is a two-line section that appears in search engine results. In the past, keywords were used extensively in this section. This kind of abuse no longer yields any results. The description tag now consists of statements that clearly state what the page is about.

Google no longer considers the keywords in the descriptions as a ranking factor and looks at their semantic value.

This area, which requires the use of texts that will offer a high click-through rate, should now be improved in a way that adds value to the reader. Sites that do this can achieve much better results with the value they add to the description section. The ideal length of this section is between 110-130 characters. The text should be easy to read and provide clear information about the article. The text must be free from keyword stuffing.

  • There should be 1-3 sentences stating what the page is about.
  • At the beginning of the title tag, there should be a link to the targeted keyword.
  • A unique description tag should be used for each page.

Page Load Speed

Page load speed is all about the time it takes for your site to fully open. The slower the page load speed, the worse the user experience will be and the search engine will pick up on this negative signal immediately.

  • Almost half of online shoppers expect a page to open in 2 seconds or less.
  • Almost half of the people who realize that a page takes more than 3 seconds to open leave the page.
  • People who do not return to a site with a slow loading speed are much more likely than those who return.

Unless you are a programmer or developer, you may not be able to improve your page speed on your own. However, you can check your site’s page speed using various tools. With Google’s PageSpeed Insight tool, you can instantly check the status of your site and pages.

Your goal is to score more than 85 out of 100 on tools that check page speed. This article will not address the factors that cause slow page speed. For this, it would be much better to contact the site developer or the SEO expert you are working with. You should always test your site with different tools and try to be sure about page speed.

Finally, if you are using WordPress, there are various plugins that can help you with this.

URL Structure

In simple terms, URL means the address of your site pages. The URL structure is related to the way your site is developed and built. The basic use cases can be expressed with simplicity and clarity. In order to fully address the URL structure, it is necessary to provide more specific information on this subject. In particular, more comprehensive information should be provided on the authority status. This issue will be discussed in detail in other parts of the article.

In terms of SEO, authority means the importance and weight of a page compared to other pages. Various different elements are taken into account to determine the authority status of a page. Some of these are backlinks, social media signals, domain age, and brand awareness.

Pages with high authority can influence your page and in this way, you can make your brand and page more authoritative. In general, home pages are the pages with the most authority. The amount of authority or status it has effects and affects other sub-pages.

The main purpose of this article is to keep your site as flat as possible. For this reason, you should try not to create unnecessary subfiles. For each sub-file or sub-category you create, you will lose a little more authority. You should make it easy for search engines to identify your page. You should clearly express your page in the URL address. For example, your URL address should be as follows: www.example.com/blog/content-name/.

Your URL address should be simple in this way. Including additional parameters and fields in this field will not gain you anything, on the contrary, it will cause you to lose authority. As a small business owner, you should remember that there are numerous advantages to keeping your URL structure as simple as desired.

Image Usage

Giving appropriate names to images and using them is one of the most important steps to improve your SEO efforts. This is also one of the most important works that you should do continuously. You should not miss the opportunities.

The most important elements you need to consider about images are the following:

1- Create the name of the images in line with the keyword. For example, if your keyword is marketing plans for small businesses, the name of the image file should include this phrase.

2- The other thing you should pay attention to is the Alt Tag. This tag is extremely effective in determining what the image is. The alt tag tells search engines what the image is and also gives information about the image to people who cannot see the image.

Be careful about the texts you put in the alt tag. In the past, keyword stuffing studies were carried out by applying methods that should not be preferred in this field. Naturally, search engines act more meticulously in this regard. Do not consider creating alt-tag text by resorting to keyword-stuffing methods. Try to be as descriptive as possible in the alt tag. If the keyword is naturally included in the alt tag text, then you have put forward a successful work.

You should stay away from duplicates. From the beginning, you should try not to create alt-tag texts with duplicate phrases. If you are lazy with image names and don’t make a difference, the negative impact will grow over time and you will have to change the names of individual images.

Mobile Friendly

Last April, Google announced that it would start penalizing sites that are not mobile-friendly. The goal of this update was to ensure that sites have mobile designs and responsive designs. However, the main goal was to provide mobile users with a better browsing experience.

What does this mean for your site? If your site is experiencing drops in mobile search traffic, then you need to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. If you want to create a truly mobile-friendly site, you may want to consider the following tips.

How can you tell if you’re getting mobile traffic? In order to do this, you first need to use an analysis tool. With this analysis tool, you can check where your site traffic is coming from, that is, from which sources.

Step 1: You must create a Google Analytics account for your site. To do this, you can go to the Google Analytics service and immediately create an account for your site.

Step 2: You should click on the Add Section field and then continue by checking the box that says Organic Traffic. You should then start to see an orange bar that will display your site’s organic traffic. You can disable displaying all other sources if you wish.

Step 3: From the Audience section on the left, you should click on mobile and start looking at your site’s data for organic mobile search traffic. If your site is not mobile-friendly, you are likely to see decreases in the data here.

How do you know if your site is mobile-friendly? The easiest way to find out is with a tool offered by Google. You can instantly check if your site is mobile-friendly with Google’s checker.

Do I need to make all site pages mobile-friendly? The short answer is no. Google handles pages one by one when it comes to ranking. For this reason, you should first convert your important pages to mobile-friendly ones. Then you can consider converting your other pages to mobile-friendly.

I want to make my site mobile-friendly, what should I do? If you are using a platform like WordPress, then it is possible to do this with a new theme. When choosing a theme, you should definitely turn to responsive designs. Responsive designs ensure that the site pages appear in a way that adapts to the device being viewed. Google considers sites with responsive design as mobile-friendly. If you want to produce solutions in the long term, you should support your site with a responsive design instead of presenting your mobile site as a separate version.

When you have a responsive design, you can create a simple, focused site with a cleaner link structure. If you have a custom-built site, then you should try to introduce responsive design to your site by hiring a good designer. The cost of this will vary according to the structure and size of your site.

Conclusion

In today’s world, the name Google is no longer a search engine but a verb. The word Google replaces the word search.

In today’s world, the internet is used for searching and researching things. If you need something, you can log directly into search engines and try to find what you want here. When you enter the query you want in the search box and do the search, you will see a list of results full of answers, solutions, and products.

SEO is extremely important for your small business. To put it one way, even if you are not the best in the world, you need to use these methods to ensure that your business can be found.

SEO is not a quick fix. However, as a small business owner, you should know the impact of these studies on your business and your company. For this, you should first identify your shortcomings and then work with the expert you will work with. You should devote some of your time to improving your site for search engines. Keep in mind that you have to sacrifice some cost for this, but the returns will be much more important. As your site moves toward the top of the rankings, it will be able to have more traffic and appeal to more people, increasing your earnings.

If you want your business to be at a much better point, you should put your heart and soul into it. Making your site SEO-compatible means that you better meet the needs of customers and potential customers who will visit your site.

Helpful SEO Tools

  • Google Site Manager Tools (Search Console): This tool allows you to control your site’s presence on Google. You can do keyword tracking, and edit sitemaps, and robots.txt files here.
  • Google Keyword Planner: This tool helps you research the keywords people are using on Google. It also shows you figures such as the cost per click set for AdWords.
  • Google Trends: A tool to use if you want to do average research on phrases, locales, and related words. It shows you terms that are on the rise and terms that are on the decline.
  • Google PageSpeed Insights: Page load speed is important for high rankings. You can measure your site’s performance using this tool.
  • Google Structured Data Testing Tool: Structured data called Rich Snippets appear in search results. With this tool, you can understand how Google and other search engines use data on pages.
  • Bing Site Manager Tools: You can check your site’s presence on Yahoo! and Bing. You can do keyword tracking, and edit sitemaps and robots.txt saturates here.
  • Moz: A paid service that gives you the comprehensive tools you need for search engine optimization.
  • KISSMetrics: A paid service that makes it easy to analyze conversion values and other critical data.
  • WordPress: A free content management system that makes creating and publishing content a breeze.
  • WordPress SEO by Yoast: It is a free plugin used in WordPress. It offers various facilities to make pages and articles compatible with SEO.
  • Google URL Builder: It is a tool that will allow you to create custom URL addresses in order to track the data to be obtained while promoting your site with other links, paid media, and e-mail marketing efforts through Google Analytics.
  • AuthorityLabs: Allows you to track your site’s ranking for specific keywords on Google, Bing, and Yahoo! search engines.
  • BuiltWith: A service that allows you to find the services, tools, and server information used by another site.
  • SharedCount: A service that allows you to analyze the amount of social media shares and comments on a page.
  • WordStream: An alternative keyword research tool that can be used to research the keywords that users use to determine their search intent.
  • REDbot: A service that can be used to check and review a site’s redirected links.
  • Ubersuggest: A tool that allows you to conduct research for the keywords you specify based on data on searches suggested by Google.
  • Microdata Generator: Microdata is a form of metadata that allows you to pass people, places, events, and product features on your pages to search engines. With this tool, you can use this metadata more easily.
  • Facebook Open Graph Debugger: Your site may not be showing up on Facebook the way you want it to. This tool provides you with information on displaying common problems and helps Facebook to better evaluate page content.
  • WebPageTest: This tool allows you to evaluate the opening speed of your site’s pages and also provides you with recommendations for improvements. With this tool, you can improve your site’s page loading speeds.
  • WP Engine & Pagely: This is a paid server service that makes it easy to manage WordPress sites. By using this service, you can have faster loading of WordPress sites.

SEO Glossary

You can find useful terms, words, and other expressions used in the search engine optimization sector below. Knowing these will contribute a lot in this field.

  • 301 Redirect: This is a method. You inform search engines that your site or page has been redirected to a different location. Using a 301 Redirect is an important method to use when you move content or related pages to other locations on your site.
  • Authorship: This is the method of identifying the site and content of your Google account. In this way, you can make all content your own with the help of your Google Plus ID.
  • 404 Page: An error that tells a visitor that the page they want to access is not on the site. It is recommended that you create your 404 page in an appropriate format. Thus, you can help visitors who cannot find their way around.
  • Search Engine Crawlers: Originally referred to as Crawler. They are software developed by search engines to index pages and detect other linked pages.
  • Analytics: A shortened version of the Google Analytics tool. It is a free tool that allows you to track the performance and status of your site.
  • Internal Link Work: Internal link work is the name given to the process of linking from one page to other pages on the site. Thanks to this method, which will increase the user experience, you can ensure that users stay on the site for more time.
  • Geo-targeting: Geo-targeting means that you take care to deliver content or information to people accessing it from a specific location. It is also often referred to as local targeting.
  • Nofollow: This is a type of link attribute. With this attribute that you use when redirecting links, you signal not to include the authority and similar values that your page has in the outgoing link. These types of links are generally used in areas such as blog comments.
  • HTTP: A technical protocol used to access pages on the Internet.
  • Open Graph Project: A technical description of the metadata used by social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus.
  • Link: Words that are clickable and take search engines and users to other pages. Links connect pages and sites to each other.
  • Organic Search: It is used to define the traffic generated from search results.
  • Penalty or Sanction: Negative signals that are the result of actions that will lower your site’s ranking and damage its reputation. Penalties or sanctions are automatically applied by search engine algorithms or search engine staff for reasons such as keyword stuffing, link buying, etc.
  • Indexing: This is the process that defines that the search engine can crawl your site and keeps its information in the content library, that is, in the index.
  • Personalized Search: It is not possible for sites to appear on the search engine results page based solely on keywords. Google and other search engines present results based on the user’s location and interaction with other brands or people.
  • Meta Tags: HTML codes that provide metadata to search engines. This includes data such as description, keywords, indexing, archiving, and publisher information.
  • Safe Browsing: Google is constantly improving its algorithm to ensure that its users browse safely. When Google detects sites with content that is harmful to users, it informs users about this and adds a warning to the relevant site within the scope of Safe Browsing.
  • Sitelinks: This refers to popular pages visited by others and consists of links that appear below the main site in search engine results.
  • SEO: It is the short form of search engine optimization studies.
  • Site Map: A file that lists the last updated date of the site pages in order of priority. Sitemaps are usually not seen by humans, only by robots.
  • SEM: It is the short form of search engine marketing.
  • SERP: It is the short form of the phrase search engine results page.
  • Robots.txt: A file that signals search engines not to index certain parts of the site. These signals also apply to links to be added to the sitemap.

SEO Checklist

If you want to check whether the site content or the site is optimized for search engines, you can use the checklist below. It is an ideal checklist to start with, even if it does not provide individual methods for each page.

  • Page Title: Is it relevant and focused on the page?
  • Meta Description: Does it add meaning to the title while avoiding looking like an ad?
  • Meta Authorship: Have you matched your content with your Google Plus profile?
  • Meta Open Graph: Have you applied the Open Graph tags and descriptions correctly?
  • Mobile Access: Is your site easily accessible from all devices?
  • URL Structure: Is the URL structure of your site clear and unambiguous?
  • Sitemaps: Does your site have a sitemap.xml map?
  • txt: Is your robots.txt file configured correctly?
  • Subheadings: Have you used keywords in subheadings?
  • Content: Is your content easily readable by visitors?
  • Keyword Usage: Have you used keywords and their variations correctly? Was the use of keywords done in a natural way?
  • Visuals: Do the file names of the images consist of specific phrases? Have you filled in the alt tag text in the images?
  • Links: Is the anchor text in the link descriptive?
  • Social Presence: Are you present on popular social networks? Have you linked to your site from social sites? Is your profile information on social networks filled with descriptive and clear information?
  • Structured Data: Have you used structured data in specific content on your site?

In this context, we wanted to answer the question of how to do SEO in the clearest way. I hope you will find this content useful. If you are looking for a professional SEO consultant, we would like you to know that we can provide you with excellent services. All you have to do is reach us through the contact page.

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