Today’s digital revolution has set an all-new trend of making oneself get noticed in the virtual world. Gone are those days when print media had to be convinced that your brand is worth enough to get printed on their hard copies. Today’s digital media demands new efforts to make your brand get notable attention. Since most of the background work is online, you need to befriend Google’s SEO algorithms and optimize your website accordingly in order to aid Google to bring your website first when the corresponding search words are typed into Google’s search bar.
Synopsis: Grandpa’s questions about the digital world
Mr. Tarur is a big businessman in the early ’90s. He started the business of the khadi fabrics back then and his son took over after him and now it was time for his grandson to step into the family business. Mr. Tarur was having his breakfast with his whole family and it was then this conversation came up. Mr. Bhatia Tarur, Mr. Tarur’s son was talking about the digital impact on today’s businesses in general. Also, he was mentioning about the new expertise - digital marketing, he was in need of to increase his business, especially Search Engine Optimization (SEO). When Mr. Bhatia Tarur told about digital marketing and SEO, Akshay his son started to enumerate the importance of it in the genric. It was then Mr. Tarur asked Akshay about Google’s status since he was not accustomed to the digital world much. He went on to question how incorporating Google’s instruction to their website helps in the so-called ranking that the present world is so obsessed about. Akshay started explaining in simple terms how adhering to Google’s algorithms will ultimately help them to his Grandpa.
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing is the current way of marketing making the best use of digital facilities and the smart devices that uses the digital world concepts to the fullest. Ever since smartphones notched up and still evolves, digital marketing finds its way and establishes its root, and spreads out day by day. Many branches have risen out of the parent - digital marketing. Be it SEO algorithms, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Email Marketing, etc., each branch has its own importance in the overall ranking improvement and special attention is always given to SEO as it is the prime element to bring a website to the top search results.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization is the practice by which the hits to your website increase organically. By the organic method, you don’t pay for putting your website in the limelight, it happens naturally according to programmed algorithms. Google has crawlers that will check the whole of the internet for the most suitable search results when something is typed on the search bar. This process will be helpful if the proper matches with respect to each word are made. Let me explain the important strategies that make SEO a powerful tool. With this, Akshay starts explaining his Grandpa the details of SEO.
Important aspects of SEO
SEO helps a big deal in optimizing the website to make it Google-findable. Only if the website becomes Google-findable, will it be able to make it to the top rank? There are many
technicalities that aid in the ranking parameters. Basically, you can broadly classify the SEO working as two main aspects, and focused attention needs to be given to both these aspects.
They are as follows:
Onsite Optimization Strategies
Onsite optimization strategies are the parameters that you need to look into closely ‘on’ your website. Search engines use the ‘crawling’ technique to do a quick check of the availability of the relevant information with respect to the search words that are put into the search bar. And in order to carry out this crawling search, it is highly essential that your website has the right content at the right place following the SEO parameters that the crawling process pays close attention to.
Offsite Networking
Offsite Networking is basically about how you maintain a cordial gesture towards your peers and thereby maintaining a positive outlook of your business entity. Especially on social media platforms and other digital media platforms, it is important that you maintain a balanced and holistic identity. Competition in business is healthy, however, sharing is caring, the more you be supportive of others, the more they support you. Backlinking is essential is this aspect of SEO.
5 Important strategies that will make your website SEO friendly
There are various strategies to make your website stay updated with SEO protocols. Let us look into the following 5 important strategies that will make your website SEO friendly.
- Keywords
- Meta tags/ Meta description
- Content
- Backlinks
- Site performance metrics & MFI
Keywords
Keywords are crucial in the present day scenario. To be seen and identified, search engines need a source or an element to match to you. And the element that matches you with the entered search words is the keywords. It is the keyword that increases the traffic to your website. Hence it is essential that you brainstorm the best fit keyword that will match you with the search words typed on the search engines. If single there arises a heavy competition over single-word keywords, then you can concentrate on ‘long-tail’ keywords which are typically between 2-5 word count. The benefit of using a long-tail keyword is that, if the keyword is longer, the competition is relatively lesser, which means you will get a good amount of traffic to your website.
Meta tags/ Meta description
The content/description that follows the title is labeled as meta-description. Now, each and every single word that goes into the meta description is precious. There is a word limit to that description, however, you need to be absolutely careful while choosing the words that go into it. The image below is where and how the meta description is placed and looks like.
Content
Content is the real deal in digital marketing. You can have everything set in terms of the technicalities of digital marketing, but, if you don’t pay attention to the quality and nature of the content, then all the efforts will go wasted. Hence you need to come up with a clear idea of what kind of content goes to which part of the website. Google crawlers have a habit of diving into the stuffing of keywords to bring your website top. Hence you need to pay close attention to the keywords and in general the quality of words that the content comprises.
Backlinks
Backlinking is very essential because of the simple fact, citation. In the research community, this is a well-known concept. The more a research article is cited, the more authentic and novel research work it is. The same thing holds good for backlinking concepts regarding SEO protocols. The more redirections to your website organically, the more ranking potential your website has.
Site performance metrics & MFI
Site performance in the broad sense refers to the loading time of the website. It is an implied rule that the loading time of your website should be three seconds. The more time your website takes to load, the more potential customers/clients you tend to miss. So, in order to make your website’s performance terrific, you need to concentrate on the types of contents that go on to your website. The logic is that the more visual/video content present on your website, the more time it takes to load. At the same time, having a major verbose element of your website makes it less attractive for your customers to read. Hence the catch here is that a perfect balance of the right amount of visual and verbal elements needs to placed on your website wisely.
And in today’s scenario, everyone uses smartphones extensively. Hence it is a mandated rule that your website should be compatible with all devices, especially on smartphones. Hence it is vital that you adhere to the mobile-first index’s protocols. Now, that counts too, to add up to the SEO overall rankings. Apart from this the clarity of the pictures that go on your website also needs to be crystal clear. Today’s customers/clients are not only looking for the contents, but they are particular about product pictures as well. So, special care has to be taken to make sure that the picture quality is maintained well as these contribute to the SEO ranking as well.
Its Akshay’s time
With all those details that Akshay brought to the table, Grandpa said that Akshay was now officially ready to carry forward the business to the next generation. And the whole family rejoiced.
Conclusion
The above scenario depicts the stature of the present trend of SEO ranking protocols. Today’s young world is well aware of the trends and it is essential to stay in pace with the evolving market trends. In order to make your business successful, it is essential that you need to adhere to your brand’s SEO strategies by making your website SEO friendly by implementing the above-discussed SEO strategies.
