SEO: Making Your Website Search Engine Friendly in 2024

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a part of digital marketing. It is one of the most commonly used digital marketing techniques, along with pay per click (PPC). Its aim is to change the content and appearance of your website to get more website traffic.

The idea is that if your website is ranked highly, you will get more visitors. With more visitors (more traffic), the more likely it is that some of those visitors will become your customers or clients.

Since the main task is to make your website more appealing to search engines, let’s see how they work and what you can do to help them discover your pages.

How Do Search Engines Work Step by Step?

Search engines are the most commonly used websites on the internet. Users like you search for specific (“mens size 12 black sneakers”) or not-so-specific (“shoes”) expressions. Search engines try to find the most relevant search results to user queries.

When you enter such a search phrase, you will see a list of results. This is called a search engine results page (SERP). Usually, there are some paid ads on the top, then below, you can find the most relevant results to your search.

Your goal with search engine optimization is to make sure you understand what your clients are looking for. They want their websites to show up among the most relevant search results. There is a reason why search engines return you the results so fast: they have already prepared them for you.

This process consists of three main steps:

• Crawling: Search engines crawl your pages, which means they discover it. They automatically browse the internet, and discover new websites, or new content on already existing websites.
• Indexing: Once they have crawled it, search engines “understand” the content on your website. Keywords play a crucial role in this.
• Ranking: Finally, search engines rank your website in order of relevancy for a specific search term.

What Are the Most Popular Search Engines?

Without doubt, the most popular search engine used across the world is Google. With an average of 8.5 billion searches per day, Google performs over 90% of all searches worldwide in 2024. With that being said, there are some other popular search engines as well:

• Bing: Microsoft’s own search engine, with important multimedia capabilities,
• DuckDuckGo: the preferred search engine for privacy-savvy users,
• Yahoo: precedes Google, and still liked by many,
• Baidu: China’s largest search engine,
• Yandex: Russia’s largest search engine.

What Are the Steps of SEO?

1. Technical Audit: Make sure that there are no technical issues that could prevent the indexing of your website.
2. Competitor Research: Try to identify your main competitors. Which companies serve the same market niche? Which businesses compete with you in your local area? Find these companies and businesses, check out the websites, and try to collect ideas.
3. Keyword Research: Collect the keywords you think users would enter into a search engine to find your business. Use the ideas from your competitors, but also, try to think outside the box. There are many free tools out there that can help you with this process.
4. Content Creation: With the keyword research done, you can now focus on your content. Write informative and quality content about a topic that could interest your prospective clients. Content items can be text or multimedia.
5. Perform On-Page SEO: On your website, change elements such as meta tags, meta descriptions and image alt texts to better conform your search engine optimization strategy. These elements, even if some of them are not immediately visible, contain information that search engines use to rank your website.
6. Build Links: Once you have good enough content on your website, reach out to other website owners and ask for a link pointing to your website.
7. Monitor Your Performance: Use tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics to track your website traffic and your users’ behavior.
8. Make Adjustments: You might find that some keyword lose traction while some perform better. Continuous monitoring and adjustments help you keep your website on track.

The Different Types of SEO

There are several specialty branches of SEO, according to the aspects you work on.

On-Page SEO

On-page search engine optimization involves performing keyword research and publishing quality content on your website. It is also important to place internal links and outgoing links to other websites on your pages.

By adding descriptive alt texts to your images and changing their file name, you make them informative for search engines like Google. Make sure that the file names and alt texts contain relevant keywords.

Similarly, you can change the URL of your pages.

Write relevant metadata for your pages. Metadata include title tags, header lines, and meta descriptions.

Here is an SEO meta description example for this page:

Enhance your website’s performance with SEO. Discover how search engine optimization works and learn how to optimize your website for increased traffic.

Read our blog post on how to write meta texts.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO involves performing techniques that are not related to the website itself.

Building backlinks help increase the authority of your website. A higher authority score, in turn, will make your website more attractive for other people to link to. This ultimately drive more traffic to your website.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO practices ensure that your website is compliant with search engine requirements. It involves optimizing visible and invisible elements of your website so that search engines can more easily crawl and index your pages.

Important techniques:

• Submitting XML sitemaps to search engines to help them find page URLs.
• Using hreflang attributes for international SEO.
• Using canonical URL to represent duplicate pages.
• Reducing page size and getting ride of unnecessary code.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a strategy to optimize your website to be more visible in local search results on Google. The goal is that when people search in your geographical area, your business should show up first.

This is especially important if you own a physical business such as a restaurant.

Make sure to optimize your website content using keywords relevant in the local area. Add details of your location, and include your business in local directories.

Here are some key local SEO strategies to consider:

1. Optimize for location-specific keywords: Incorporate your city, state, or neighborhood names into your website’s content, titles, meta descriptions, and other elements to increase your visibility in local searches.
2. Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile: Ensure that your business is listed on Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and that your information, such as your address, hours of operation, and contact details, is accurate and up-to-date.
3. Encourage and respond to online reviews: Positive online reviews can significantly impact your local search rankings and attract more customers. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook, and respond to both positive and negative reviews professionally.
4. Build local citations and listings: Ensure that your business is listed on relevant local directories, such as Yelp, Yellowpages, and industry-specific directories. Consistent and accurate citations across multiple platforms can improve your local SEO visibility.
5. Optimize for voice search: With the increasing popularity of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, optimizing your content for voice search queries can help you reach local customers who are searching for businesses and services near them using voice commands.

eCommerce SEO

With this type of search engine optimization, your goal is to optimize the pages of an online store to provide better customer experience.

Some key aspects you want to consider are:

• Focus on making customer reviews accessible.
• Obtain links from your products’ distributors or manufacturers.
• Optimizing your pages for mobile devices.
• Making sure that no technical issues slow down the user’s experience.

SEO Tools

As we discussed earlier, you need to perform various tasks to implement your SEO strategy. You’re not alone – there are tools out there to help you. Some of them are free, while some others are subscription-based. Let’s see what the most popular SEO tools are:

• Semrush is a comprehensive tool suite that includes keyword research, content marketing, analytics, reporting, local SEO and social media marketing. Semrush, although pricey, covers all the aspects of digital marketing, but it is definitely worth your money.
• Ahrefs is a similar, all-encompassing tool suite with many great features in keyword research and competitor analysis.
• SimilarWeb‘s strong suit is analyzing the different aspects of a website’s online performance.
• SERanking is an excellent, low-budget solution and has a powerful SEO audit tool.
• The Hoth has several free SEO tools such as keyword planner and keyword volume checker.

How Can I Do SEO for My Website?

First, you have to determine your customers’ or clients’ needs. What do you think they are looking for? How would they find your products or services online?

You can draw inspiration and ideas from your competitors. Look at their websites, and see if you notice any trends or commonalities.

Then, conduct keyword research. There are several free tools out there that can help you with this. Keyword research means collecting all the possible expressions your prospective clients could use to find your website.

Start producing content. Your content should incorporate the keywords and any ideas you took from your competitors.

Then, start building links. It’s not enough if your website is discovered by search engines and people can find it there. Other websites may have links pointing to your website. Use this technique to direct traffic to your site.

What you should experience after some time is that you are getting more visitors (website traffic). The task is now to convince those visitors who are just casually browsing your pages to become your clients. This is called conversion.

The Role of Content in SEO

Content plays a crucial role in any successful search engine optimization strategy. Search engines prioritize websites that provide high-quality, relevant, and engaging content for users. By creating valuable content that addresses your target audience’s needs and incorporates relevant keywords naturally, you can improve your website’s visibility and authority in search engine results.

Here are some tips for creating SEO-friendly content:

1. Conduct thorough keyword research: Identify the keywords and phrases that your users search for to find information related to your products, services, or industry.
2. Create content that is high-quality and informative: Develop content that provides value to your readers and addresses their questions, concerns, and needs. Focus on creating long-form, in-depth content that covers topics comprehensively. You might want to consider different types of content (videos, blog posts).
3. Incorporate keywords naturally: Use your target keywords and phrases throughout your content, but avoid keyword stuffing or using them in an unnatural way that compromises the quality and readability of your content.
4. Optimize for featured snippets: Structure your content in a way that makes it easy for search engines to extract and display as featured snippets, which can increase your visibility and click-through rates.
5. Promote your content: Share your content on social media platforms, email newsletters, and other channels to increase its visibility and earn backlinks from other websites.
6. Update and refresh existing content: Regularly review and update your existing content to ensure that it remains relevant, accurate, and engaging for your audience.

By consistently creating and promoting high-quality, SEO-friendly content, you can establish your website as a valuable resource in your industry, improve your search engine rankings, and drive more organic traffic to your site.

Measuring and Analyzing SEO Success

Implementing an effective SEO strategy is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring, analysis, and adjustment. To ensure that your efforts are paying off and to identify areas for improvement, it’s essential to measure and analyze your SEO success using various metrics and tools.

Here are some key metrics and tools to consider:

1. Search engine rankings: Monitor your website’s rankings for your target keywords and phrases on major search engines like Google and Bing. Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz can help you track your rankings over time and identify opportunities for improvement.
2. Organic traffic: Use website analytics tools like Google Analytics to track the amount of organic traffic your website is receiving from search engines. Analyze trends over time and identify the pages and keywords driving the most traffic.
3. Conversion rates: Monitor your website’s conversion rates, such as form submissions, sales, or other desired actions, to determine the effectiveness of your SEO efforts in driving valuable traffic and potential customers.
4. Backlink profile: Monitor the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your website. Tools like Ahrefs and Moz can provide insights into your backlink profile and help you identify opportunities for link building and disavowing low-quality or spammy links.
5. Page speed and user experience metrics: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and WebPageTest to monitor your website’s page speed and performance. Analyze user experience metrics like bounce rate, time on site, and page views per session to identify areas for improvement.
6. Technical SEO audits: Regularly perform technical SEO audits to identify and address any issues that may be hindering search engines from properly crawling and indexing your website, such as broken links, duplicate content, or missing meta tags.

By regularly monitoring and analyzing these metrics and taking action based on your findings, you can continuously optimize your SEO strategy, improve your search engine rankings, and drive more organic traffic and potential customers to your website.

While SEO is a powerful tool, it should be integrated into a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. By aligning your SEO efforts with other channels like social media, content marketing, and paid advertising, you can amplify your online presence, reach a broader audience, and drive more meaningful engagement with your brand.

Remember, SEO is an ongoing process that requires patience, dedication, and a willingness to adapt. By staying up-to-date with best practices, making use of data and analytics, and consistently delivering value to your audience, you can unlock the full potential of SEO and achieve sustained success.

Traffic Trailblazer is eager to help you with your SEO efforts. Please visit our services page for more information.