Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your site’s visibility on relevant searches. The more your pages rank on top of search results, the more likely you’ll get discovered. Such discoveries increase traffic on your website and give you more chances to convert your website visitors into buyers. The main goal of SEO is to be on top of the first page of every search engine. The top 3 search engines in the world are Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Unlike paid search ads, there is no way you can search engines to put you on top of organic search ranking. SEO is something you have to work on and continuously maintain. 

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Google, Bing, and Yahoo use bots to collect information about different online pages. These bots crawl from site to site and go to different web pages to index them. After indexing, they take into account hundreds of factors and signals to rank each page. The algorithm is designed to put authoritative and relevant pages on top of the search results for a given query. For a digital marketing speaker Hong Kong, the most common factors to SEO are content quality, crawlability, keyword research, and mobile friendliness. Content quality and keyword research are the keys to optimize content pages. On the other hand, crawlability and mobile-friendliness are the keys to optimize a website architecture. 

Search engines are also called answer machines. It is because their main goal is to give the most relevant answer to an online query. As they want every website to succeed, they have published basic guidelines on how to make your site rank high on every search. 

The basic webmaster guideline of Google is as follows:

  • Create pages for users and not for search engines.
  • Do not mislead your users.
  • Do not engage in tricks to improve your search ranking.
  • Focus on making your website engaging, unique, and valuable. 

The basic webmaster guideline of Bing is as follows:

  • Create clear, deep, easy-to-find, and engaging content.
  • Use clear and relevant titles.
  • Grow your links organically.
  • Encourage content sharing. 
  • Optimize the speed of your site for a positive and useful user experience.
  • Use alt-text to caption images and videos for Bing to understand these types of content.
  • Use alt attributes to describe images so that Bing can better understand the content.

The basic webmaster guideline of Yahoo is as follows:

  • All pages must have a relevant title.
  • Short titles rank well. It is recommended to limit your page title to 67 characters.
  • Use meta descriptions to summarize your page content.
  • Avoid using hidden single-pixel links and invisible text. 

Webmaster guidelines vary per search engine, but they have one common element – that is to provide an accurate, clear, and straightforward answer to a user’s query.

HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (BEST SEO PRACTICES 2021)

The harsh truth is, that a website is considered invisible if it doesn’t rank in Google, Bing, or Yahoo’s top 10 search results. Most users only read the first page of search engine results, which is commonly the first 10 links. The good news is, there are several strategies and techniques you can follow to optimize the SEO of your pages. By adhering to these best SEO practices, you will surely rank high on the search pages of 2021.

Create content that aligns with the search intent of your target audience. The purpose behind every search query is called search intent. They are the ultimate priority of search engines. The 4 common types of search intent are:

  • Commercial – looking for a specific product.
  • Informational – looking for specific information.
  • Navigational – looking for a specific app or website.
  • Transactional – looking for a specific brand or item to buy.

One best SEO practice is to create content and pages set for these types of search intent.

Use compelling title tags and meta description. Title tags are clickable headlines, while meta description is a summary of page content. Most searchers are scanners. This means that they prefer to read the first 3 or 4 lines of content. Among search engines, what comes out are the title tags and meta description of content or page. So, be sure that you get the user’s attention by merely reading the headline. Better yet, make the meta description as engaging to let them know what’s in store for them when they visit your page. The same goes for images and video content. A video marketing agency Hong Kong noted that titles and meta descriptions boost the discovery of visuals.

Optimize your site images. Images play an important role to boost traffic to your website. Finding the relevant image makes your content more desirable and engaging. However, optimizing your site images is another thing. Images with very large sizes can slow down the loading speed of your site. Likewise, too small images may not be very appealing. The key to optimizing your search engine optimization via images is to use the right format and size that fit a page. JPEG and PNG are the most-used image format on the web. This is because they can easily be compressed. A social media agency Hong Kong noted that there are different image sizes specified by different social media networks. These guidelines can be accessed through this cheat sheet. 

Optimize your site speed. There are several free tools that you can use to help determine your page speed. Some of them are:

Besides image compression, you can make your site load faster by:

  • Avoiding complex designs and dynamic elements (CSS and JavaScript files).
  • Avoiding pop-ups and redirects on your site if possible.
  • Choosing the right hosting service with a faster server response time.
  • Deleting unnecessary website components.
  • Enabling temporary data storage called caching.

Connect your pages through internal linking. The best way to optimize your search engine optimization is by creating lots of content and pages and linking them internally. This is important because it helps search engines better and deeply understand your website. 

Organize your website content. An organized website gives a better user experience. People will keep coming back to you, and it will establish your authority among search engines. An organized website doesn’t have intruding pop-ups, uses menu and subheadings for easier navigation, and uploads visually appealing content.

Keep your URL simple. A URL is an address of a webpage. It is the unique link generated by a page over the web. Keeping a simple URL can boost a site’s ranking in search results. Most websites sign up for a URL shortener site to make their URL readable. It also puts important keywords on their unique link. These keywords are the ones that users normally type on their query.