What is SEO?
The next step in my academic adventures is to learn all about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. Basically, it means create a website in a way that makes it so that when people Google a topic, your site shows up high on the list. Hardly anyone will click on page 7 of the search results, so you want to be on page 1 to get some views. SEO is a way to move from page 7 to page 1 based on a few techniques.
Why SEO Matters
This should be pretty obvious by now, but without proper SEO your website has a much lower chance of being noticed or visited. If you are selling a product or an idea, you want people to see it so they can have the chance to buy it. Increasing your site's traffic is essential for success. I have not seen any downfalls to utilizing SEO techniques except that it can take a bit of time to get together if you factor in how long it takes to research keywords or optimize the layout of a website. The web is a competitive place and your page needs to stand out so that people have a reason to visit.
What are Some Key Techniques?
Having relevant content with specific keywords or phrases is important, as well as having a page that loads quickly and is user friendly. Spamming a keyword over and over is not useful - you need relevant content to keep the visitor from bouncing (leaving) the website. A good page experience is important for the searching algorithm. If people search for a term, arrive at your site, and stay because your site has good content, then that is one piece that will move your site up in the searching algorithm. Another reason to have good content is so that other websites link to your website. If you have an awesome online calculator for a home budget that is easy to use, then home finance blogs may link to your site just for that one feature. This will create more traffic to your website all based on the single fact that you had some good content worth sharing.
(Note: There are all sorts of analytics and tags that are useful for optimizing your page. This will be explored in a future blog post. )
Awesome SEO Resources
I came across these resources that I feel are beneficial for understanding how SEO works and ways to utilize it. Of course there are many more out there and I am sure there are better ones, but here is a list to get started:
On-Page SEO: Complete Beginners Guide - pretty self explanatory, gives a great overview with some tips
SEO for Beginners (video) - This guy also has a great blog and seems to really know what he is talking about.
Seosly Blog - Although not visually appealing, the information here is really good. The "SEO 101" section is particularly useful; this is the only place I have seen a SEO glossary, for example.
My 9 Favorite Free SEO Tools for 2021 (video) - Same guy from Backlinko but with some relevant tools for today
Semrush SEO Checker/Writing Assistant - when you have some content, this can be a useful guide to see how relevant it is. You type in your main keywords, the widget loads, then you write your content and it gives you a little graph to show how great the content is. If there is an improvement to be made, the widget gives you little tips to write better. It is not a totally 100% way to guarantee great content, but it can be a good guide to get started.
Things I Learned
On top of understanding the concept of SEO, I have gained skills in knowing which tools and methods are useful to search for keywords, and had practice under a mentor to improve three pages of a website for a client. I researched main keywords and phrases for a topic I knew very little about, then I wrote headings, paragraphs, and meta tags/descriptions to tie it all together. My mentor has a paid account for ahrefs so I used that to double check the keywords I already had and generate new ones. After that project, I was given another SEO project for a different website so I think I am on the right track with this so far! This second project is more difficult because it has less information to work with compared to the first. The first site had other pages and some filler information to get a general idea of the business and services involved. The second project has no content at all, just a few general keywords. This one is a bit of a challenge, but one I am not afraid to face.
I understand the value of SEO and will utilize it as often as possible, adding it to my mental checklist of things to do. This is yet another subfield within web development and design that I have discovered this year and I am so happy that I am able to have experience with it. It seems super important and beneficial to know. Although I barely scratched the surface, I know what the next steps are: Google tags, analytics, and data studio.