What Is SEO? Know 10 Best SEO Practices 202418 min read

What is SEO is one of the most searched terms in the world of digital marketing, and reasonably so It is crucial to realize why your business needs SEO and what are the best practices for SEO.

SEO is not just a buzzword and hot topic for the internet and business, but also it is a must-have for digital marketing.

Search engine optimization provides you an immense ground to grow your business and reach out to your target audience.

Considering all of these factors, search engine optimization is a necessity and priority for today’s online business holders.

So what is search engine optimization?

What is SEO?

To simply get the point across, SEO is Search Engine Optimization.

What it means is optimizing your website, page, or content neatly so that the search engines rank your results better.

You should already be familiar with search engines. Google is the most popular and primary search engine around the world.

So as you are trying to learn SEO, you know the answer to what does google mean to you.

There are more search engines like Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yahoo!, Ask, DuckDuckGo, etc.

Now optimization would mean that your content would hold such keywords, phrases, links, and overall quality that the search engines would target your content as something very noteworthy. 

Making your blog post, web pages, website or any other piece of content SEO-friendly is a layered task.

However, it is easy to understand.

So before you get confused and turned off, know that it is very easy once you get the hang of it and get to practice it regularly.

Like anything else, the best practices of SEO will make you the best SEO practitioner who can keep up with top-level digital marketers.

So now you know what is search engine optimization.

The question is, why your business needs SEO?

Why You Need SEO for Your Business?

To understand why your business needs SEO, you need to understand what effects will SEO have for your business.

As a business entrepreneur, you surely want the growth and reach of your brand and business.

To do SEO or optimizing your content for search engines would mean a better ranking for your content.

That means whenever someone searches for a term, a topic, or some kind of product or service, your content will rank higher and show up at the top of the search results.

It would generate more traffic, more viewership, and more retention of your target audience.

In time this would also lead to better sales numbers as your exposure will get higher.

So the benefits of SEO optimization are vast and deep as you can understand.

Hopefully now you realize why you need SEO for your business, or why your business needs SEO.

It is a grand industry with growing numbers of agencies dedicated to SEO analysis, SEO marketing, and improving user experience through search engine optimization.

The key to doing high quality SEO work is knowing some fundamental key factors of search engine algorithms.

According to that, you can optimize everything on your digital platform.

From your URL structure, title tags, and meta tags to every small piece of metadata in your website falls under SEO analysis.

If you wish to pass the task of SEO to an SEO agency, you can also do that.

However, how do you know which SEO company or agency you can select for marketing?

How to Select an SEO Company for Marketing?

It is not always easy to understand which agency will be the best and most effective for your company.

However, for SEO, you can look into some key factors to really understand if the agency or company you are targeting will be good for you.

SEO is an intricate program featuring many layered tasks.

So if you do not want to risk your website for permanent damage, you should pay attention to which SEO company you choose.

Analyze Previous Campaigns

You can choose the company based on analyzing its successful SEO campaigns. 

Be aware of blackhat SEO methods

Many agencies just write for the bots of search engines. They know how to exploit the algorithm, but lack the human touch.

Although you might rank faster through them, you will lose the rank equally as fast when google bots realize your content’s dishonesty.

Cheap Or Best?

If you are thinking you will pay the lowest price and be done with the SEO factors, think about the warnings we have already mentioned.

Visit In Person

Perhaps visit the SEO company in person to get a direct view of the work. 

Local vs Global SEO Understanding

Local SEO targeting and global SEO targeting are also different tasks to handle. Make sure the agency understands it properly.

Skillful Team

It is important to make sure the agency has a skillful and diverse list of specialists who have updated knowledge of search engine algorithms. Look over the team’s work and portfolio too.

Not all websites, companies, or agencies aiming for search engine optimization possess updated knowledge and search engine optimization skills. So it is to be kept in mind.

Testimonials/ Case Studies

In addition, try to garner some authentic testimonials. An impressive set of case studies or client portfolio of your SEO agency would also prove their authority. It should be a good indicator of their quality.

SEO Pricing Models and Budget

Last but not least, get yourself familiar with SEO pricing models and establish a budget for SEO. That should make your campaign well planned and well thought out.

Many of the blogs writing about SEO optimization might be containing outdated tips. Or, they can contain traits that are no longer applicable to the vast majority of the readers or site visitors.

So you need the updated tips which will inform you SEO best practices for content and website.

Now that you are familiar with what SEO is, and you know why your business needs SEO, or why you need SEO for your business, you are ready for more.

It is time to let you know the best practices for doing SEO. If you have understood why your business needs SEO, you will probably be able to guess some of the best SEO practices.

With that in mind, let us provide you with the 10 best SEO practices that are a must-have for anyone trying to acquire search engine optimization skills.

Know 10 Best SEO Practices

1. Use HTTPs in Your URL Structure

HTTPs has been added to Google’s ranking factors since 2014.

The HTTPs tag makes the webpage more secure as it encrypts the information sent between the server and the visitor.

To make sure your website is already under HTTPs protection and encryption, check the loading bar where you type your web address.

If there is a lock icon before your web address or URL, then you are good to go.

However, if there is no such icon before your URL, you are not protected yet. You should definitely install an SSL/TLS certificate.

There are a lot of web hosts who offer SSL certificates and HTTPs encryption support in their packages.

If yours does not, find one from Bluehost, Let’s Encrypt, or GoDaddy.

Once you have your certificate installed, all of the web pages on your site should be secured, including those you have not published yet.

If you are still confused, consult a digital marketing agency, Search engine optimization agency, or SEO marketing company.

We will have you covered.

2. Target Keyword Research

The research of keywords before writing content and reaching your target audience is immensely important.

Firstly, how many people are searching for your titled topic or content is crucial to understand.

Then you also need to understand the competitors. You can observe and monitor these by analyzing the topic’s search volume and keyword difficulty. 

Moreover, it is important to notice the estimated search traffic for a topic.

Oftentimes it is noticeable that search results for a lower volume keyword still gain more traffic.

It can be because the higher volume keyword is part of a broader topic.

It can rank through other keywords, but that does not necessarily mean more traffic.

So if your topic keyword is relevant, it will gain more traffic.

To analyze the search engine traffic potential as well for your keywords.

3. Write Effective Titles and Headings

Whether you are writing in WordPress or a similar content management system for your website, how you maintain your titles and headings is important.

Your title works as the <head> element for each of the individual HTML documents you create.

Moreover, the <head> element serves as a container for each of your web page’s metadata.

Metadata is important for any scripts for your analytics tools as it also contains document title information, language usage, and other related information on your page.

So you can say, metadata is data about your data, and as your title is your container, it will let every search engine know what you actually have on your webpage or website.

For such reasons, a well-constructed title will do two things.

It will make the reader want to click on the content, and it will include the primary keyword you have been targeting.

This is another important factor for keyword best practices, as you really should try to include the primary keyword in your title, body, conclusion, and other headings where appropriate.

It is a given that people usually like content that is more specific towards them and includes a depth of knowledge, not just shallow overviews. So work with that in mind when writing your headings too.

It is one of the best keyword practices to have some of your primary and secondary keywords in your headings as well.

This will provide Google and other search engines the idea that those topics are vastly covered and found in your website articles too.

So despite the content being titled something different, your article will rank because of the rank and inclusion of important metadata.

4. Make your Meta Description Strong

Meta Descriptions define the piece of text that appears in the search engine right below your topic title.

It provides an important overview and insight into your article or content and largely plays a role in whether a potential customer or reader clicks or not.

So you can understand why it would be a big part of search engine optimization and why your business needs SEO to generate revenue.

It is good to be reminded that just like your title, your meta description resides in the <head> of each of your webpage’s HTML codes.

As in any case, think of yourself as a reader, and think about what would be a standard short description that would make you want to click a webpage.

With content management systems like WordPress, you can individually write your own meta description.

Or else google often times changes its algorithm and writes whatever text the top of the article has, or the sentence with the search keyword in your blog post or article.

A meta description is an opportunity for free advertising within your search result ranking.

So although it is not a determining factor in your search engines algorithms, you should definitely include it for user experience.

5. Optimize Images

Optimizing images goes a long way to improving the user experience for your website.

It is one of the best SEO practices to develop your images in such a way that it looks great even in the lowest possible image size.

So unless your website is solely dedicated to HD high-resolution images, feel free to compress it in an effective way.

That would certainly increase your site speed which we will elaborate upon.

Moreover, it is extremely effective to have proper alt tags used for your images.

After all, much of your organic search engine traffic can be automatically generated through image searches.

So when your image is bound with this proper metadata, alt tag, and on-page image descriptions, you can expect a great ranking increase in search results.

It is a really witty and important SEO practice and should not be missed.

Optimizing image names is really quite easy too.

Just type the name in words, and make sure your image name has the correct keywords.

Connect the words with hyphens.

Essentially, alt tag optimization is nearly the same. Just instead of hyphens, you use spaces as regular. You can include more of your keywords in alt tags too.

So make sure your image load time is faster without destroying image quality.

Of course try to maintain accessibility in addition.

Also, maintain alt tags which will help the reader understand the photo even if it does not render.

Furthermore, your alt tags can hold such important keywords that they would be a prime target for search rankings.

So image optimization is one of the best practices for content discoverability.

6. Include Internal Links

Including internal links is another one of the best practices for SEO.

The more interweaved your webpages are with one another, the more favorable your SEO will be.

Search engines like google crawl every one of your web pages and try to notice how linked your webpages are with one another.

Chances are that internal linking will increase more viewership and authority for your website.

So internal linking or inbound linking is one of the best practices for search engine optimization.

Make sure to link most relevant articles and use anchor texts for the primary keywords which are used for your linked articles.

However, keep in mind that too many internal links can distract your reader from the current topic.

Include internal links at the beginning of your article for topics and terms which need further clarification and elaboration.

Furthermore, introduce new concepts to your readers later on where necessary.

You need to keep in mind that internal links are meant to improve user experience.

So how many inbound links to connect, you can decide from the nature and length of your content as a rule of thumb.

However, make sure it is not too confusing for yourself, the search engine, or the readers as it can become distracting.

7. Improve Site Speed

According to shopify, if a website’s loading time is improved even by one percent on mobile, it increases mobile conversion rate by up to 27%!

That is a really impressive figure all things considered.

So you can realize why improving site speed can prove to be so fruitful and profitable.

The first contentful paint is important as it loads first from your DOM or document object model from your website.

There, the first contentful paint or FCP provides the first feedback to your visitor that the site is loading.

It is a good idea to make your text visible before the font and other renderings are loaded.

Also, the <head> portion of meta data loads first among all the other visible portions and meta tags of your webpage.

So, the code of this content should be as lightweight and easily loadable as possible.

You can also take the help of some online tools like Google’s lighthouse test.

It essentially lets you check what are the things that are slowing your site’s loading speed down so you can improve speed accordingly.

There are a lot of other terms to maintain from the back end of your website.

Get familiar with and optimize CDNs, CSS, web fonts, JavaScript, and lazy-loading to improve the loading time of your webpage.

You will clearly see a distinctively positive user experience when you prioritize your site loading time for your search engine optimization campaign.

8. Match Search Intent

A lot of times articles are throwaway clickbaits only targeting keywords and stuffing them, but not clearly meaning anything.

This can possibly rank your article, but only for a while until the search engines either ban you or put you in the blocklist completely.

Moreover, you can garner traffic from multiple sources, but if you are not providing what the people are searching for, your stuffing will be for nothing.

Just an empty traffic rise in number will not get you much ahead in the world of social media or digital marketing as a business owner.

Rather, as you already know what is SEO best practices, you should apply them well to satisfy both the site visitors and the search engine algorithms.

For example, if you are writing for a target keyword where you describe a recipe, people who are particularly searching “recipe” will be happy to find your article.

Along with that, maybe you can link a few sections to buy a few ingredients for the ease of your audience.

However, when they are specifically searching to “buy” a certain item, it is clear that the intent is not to read the recipe to produce such an item.

So a direct selling page would be the one that the search engine or the searcher will click on as it matches their intent.

9. Optimize Content

Optimizing your content is the most fundamental part of your SEO work.

All your SEO best practices for content will be applicable throughout your content.

You already know from the discussion how to put keywords, internal links, and take care of meta tags, meta description, and other data and meta data from the back end.

Now let us how long each paragraph should be, and how you can put keywords better in your content, blog post, or article.

After you are done with selecting your title, topic, headings, and subheadings, try to distribute your keywords equally throughout the paragraphs.

Your main keyword or primary keyword should definitely appear in the beginning, middle, and end of your writing.

The secondary keywords should also come often, and the relevant semantics should be mentioned in the discussion.

How long should each paragraph be for SEO best practices is another question to answer. It is recommended not to exceed more than 300 words for your paragraphs.

Of course, some portions might get bigger than expected. Use enough subsections and subheadings accordingly for a proper distribution.

This distinction can make your content look even cleaner and make you stand out.

10. Get More Backlinks

If another website references your content by providing your content link on their website, that will be a backlink.

Backlinks are great indicators of authority, and they clearly signify that other websites find your blog or article trustworthy and informative enough to link back.

It is in search engines algorithms to locate the quantity and quality of links provided to understand a website’s authority.

In view of the fact that only a high quality and renowned website would more often be deemed worthy enough to gain a backlink, search engines algorithms appreciate backlinks.

You can outreach other websites through an email if you feel like you have an amazing piece of content.

In turn, you could come to an agreement or arrangement where you host each others articles.

Most uprising websites do these to help each other grow together.

Moreover, you can try guest posting. Some websites allow blog posts from authors.

Therefore, you can take this opportunity to write in a third party website which promotes you as an author and allows one or two backlinks as well.

Overall, these few steps can really work magic for backlinks for your own website.

Wrapping Up – What Is SEO? Know Best SEO Practices 

By now, you have mostly got all the major ideas about SEO covered up. You know what is SEO, and you realize Why your business needs SEO as well.

Search engine optimization is a matter of keen analysis. However, once you do it thoroughly through the best SEO practices we mentioned, your search engine ranking will increase.

In addition, more traffic to your website will definitely mean more engagement, interest, conversion, and profit for you in the long run.

However, be sure to not take cheap shortcuts, and know the best SEO marketing companies. While a strong SEO marketing company can skyrocket your website quality, a weak one can cause permanent damage.

So make sure you have your website HTTPs encrypted with proper SSL certificate. Make your URLs short and concise.

Make sure to research and target your keywords properly. Write proper title tags, headings and subsections for your article.

Furthermore, write proper meta descriptions. Make your web images optimized, and create a faster loading website design.

Optimize the length of your content, and distribute keywords properly.

And last but not least, maintain a stream of internal links, and try gaining some backlinks for authority.

These are not just the basic SEO best practices, but also the best practices for search engine optimization, period.

Keep these into account as these are the best practices SEO has to offer.

There is always more to learn about SEO analysis and how to master SEO. However, these 10 SEO best practices will always be a must have for any of your websites.

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