An average of 55 million searches are made on search engines like Google every day. When one of those searches is about your area, you want them to end up on your website and not one of your competitors'. For you to get visitors to your website, it is not enough for it to look good. It is also important to appear high up in Google's search results. To be high up in Google's search results, you need to work with SEO (Search Engine Optimization).What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization or as we say in Swedish search engine optimization. It is about improving a website's ranking when it comes to the organic search results, i.e. not what is paid ads and is called SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Search engines aim to show the most relevant content at the top when a search is made. To show that your website is the most relevant page within the topic, there are some basic elements you need to consider.
Why should you work with SEO?
There are many benefits and to name a few, visibility means:
- That your target audience finds your website.
- That your target audience has done an active search, which indicates that they are very interested in what you have to offer.
- Working with SEO is also a cost-effective way to market yourself.
SEO basics for beginners
Here I will go through the basics of SEO to help you as a beginner to get started easily.
Is your website indexed?
You need a website that Google can rank. To find out if Google can rank your site, there are two easy ways to do it.
- Go to Google and enter your URL in the search bar. If your page appears, it means that Google has indexed your page and is therefore searchable via Google.
- Another way is to use Google Search Console if you haven't already installed it, it's a hot tip as Google Search Console will help you in your SEO work. Read this blog post to learn more about Google Search Console. In Google Search Console, type in the URL you want to test at the top of the search bar and then you will get information whether the URL is indexed or not.
What keywords should you use and how do you find them?
To drive traffic to your website, you need to rank well for the right keywords, i.e. the words that are related to your business. Sometimes it's not easy to know what your customers are searching for to find your products or services. By doing a keyword analysis, you can learn more about the search behaviour of your potential customers. I say keywords but in reality it's about both individual keywords and longer search terms. Longer search terms, known as long-tail, often have slightly fewer searchers but are often easier to rank higher on as the competition for them is not as fierce.
Stay focused and choose one topic per page!
Keeping the focus on one thing per landing page is not only good for search engines, it also makes it easier for the visitor to quickly and easily understand what the page is about. For example, if you have three different services, you could have one page with an overview of your services and then one landing page per service.
Meta title and meta description
Use meta-titles and meta-descriptions. A meta title (the title) and meta description (the short text below the title) are what shows up when someone googles a keyword that your page is indexed for. A title and description make it easy for someone searching for information via Google to understand if your page is what they are looking for.The length of a meta title and meta description is a certain number of characters as shown below;
The meta title must have a maximum of 60 characters
The meta description should have a maximum of 155 charactersIf you write a title or description that is too long, Google will crop the text for you, so try to keep to the right number of characters.
Name the URL clearly
Clarityis key when it comes to indexing. A clear URL makes it easier for both Google and your visitors to understand what the page is about. Try to include your keywords or search phrases in the URL itself. Avoid capitals and the letters Å, Ä and Ö.
Thepower of links
Linksare a big part of SEO. Both internal and external links have a major impact on the authority of the page, leading to better rankings. There are both internal links to other parts of the website and external links that link to other external pages.
Summary
Now I've quickly gone through the basics of SEO for those of you who are new to the subject. We've gone over what it really is and the importance of working with SEO. This is not just a trend but something that is crucial to whether your website will be found or not by new potential customers.Indexing is the name of the game when we talk about SEO as well as it is good to know which keywords or search phrases are most relevant for the specific website. In order to clearly guide visitors in the right direction, a good meta title and meta description are essential. Also make it clear for the search engines to understand the hierarchy by having clear and structured URLs. Working with links strengthens credibility and makes it easier for website visitors to navigate around. Simplicity for the visitor is something that is usually appreciated by visitors and search engines alike.Check out our SEO packages here or check out our SEO guide below!
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