Businesses use SEO strategies to rank higher. They want to ensure their businesses and information are found when online users search for answers to their questions about services or products.
Whether you are a seasoned SEO or just starting to practice SEO, the basics are essential to an effective SEO strategy. But where do you find good, trustworthy information on SEO basics?
The good news is that Payel Mukherjee, a well-known content marketer and SEO specialist, recently held a webinar on LinkedIn. Payel is the founder and CEO of Justwords, a fourteen-year-old award-winning content marketing agency.
She presented the basics of SEO—not quick hacks, overnight solutions, or theory, but a masterclass of proven strategies and concepts to achieve robust growth. This summary of the webinar contains everything you need for an effective SEO strategy. Consider it your back-to-basics SEO guide.
Curious?
Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
Different Parts of Content that are Important for SEO
Content mainly consists of three areas, which are all considered for SEO, namely:
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
However, other areas are also considered, for example:
- The main heading (or H1 tag)
- Page title (Title Tag)
- Meta Description
- Subheadings h2, and h3
- Images and Alt tags
SEO Rule 1: Use Keywords in Your SEO Hot Areas
The correct and strategic use of primary and secondary keywords is a key part of SEO.
Introduction, body, and conclusion
Use the primary keyword in your content’s main parts – the SEO Hot Areas.
Introduction: Use the primary keyword early in the introduction. Aim for the first two lines within the first few paragraphs but within the first 200 words. Google’s preference for ranking supports these.
Body: Use it naturally in the body of the content, using 1-2% as a guide for keyword density. 1% is considered good (and better than higher). Keyword usage should not be overdone.
Conclusion: Use the primary keyword once in the conclusion.
Title Tag or Meta Title Tag
The meta title appears in the page search results. It differs from the headline, which only appears on the website. The meta title helps search engines understand the page’s content and impacts CTR. With improved CTR, ranking should improve. Use the main keyword in the meta title, preferably at the beginning of the title.
Other recommendations for the meta title are:
- Limit the length to 30 – 60 characters – preferably less or equal to 55.
- The title should be clear, concise and informative
- Focus on the readability of the meta tile, for example
- Avoid title tags only in capitals or only in lowercase letters
- Avoid repeating special characters like dashes (-), or commas (,) etc
- The meta title should not be witty
The URL slug
The URL slug is the last part of the URL address and serves as the unique identifier. It provides information about what is on the page to online users and search engines. Use the main keyword in the URL slug.
Other recommendations for the URL slug are to keep it short, focus on readability, keep it unique (don’t use the same URL for any other page), and make it “future-proof” by avoiding dates or numbers.
Avoid URL slugs like “content-marketing-trends-in 2021” or “top 10 SEO practices.”
Examples of good and bad slugs are:
SEO hot elements – H1, h2,and h3
The main headline—the H1 heading—can impact a reader’s decision to continue reading and indicate its relevancy to search engines. Use the primary keyword in the H1 Heading and in the first half of the heading where possible.
Additionally, stay under 60 characters for the main headline.
In terms of h2 and h3:
- h2– Use secondary and long tail keywords in the h2 heading
- h3 – When you have an h3 subsection, use related keywords and keywords from the h2 subtopics.
Meta description:
The meta description is a “ranking signal” because it impacts the number of people who click on your page. Note that Google might also change the meta description.
The following are SEO recommendations for the meta description:
- Ideal length: keep below 150 characters to avoid being truncated by Google
- Use primary and secondary keywords in the meta description – avoid keyword stuffing.
- Make a compelling description with as much information as possible to prompt the reader to click.
- Use a call-to-action for service and selling pages.
Examples of good meta descriptions:
Remember alt text
Google extracts information about the image’s subject matter from the page content, captions, and image titles.
However, the most important attribute to provide more details about the image is
alt text:
- Alt text is the text describing the image
- It was introduced for the visually impaired and should incorporate the keyword and image description.
Alt text is an image ranking factor and an opportunity to use the primary keyword, impacting SEO.
SEO Rule 2: Increase Related or Semantic Keywords in Content
The usage of semantic keywords that are related to the primary keyword helps search engines to:
- Understand the content.
- Understand the relationships between the words and phrases.
Improving the understanding of the content leads to enhanced relevance and ranking.
Related keywords can be obtained using Google auto-complete, the “people also asked” section (especially for long-tail keywords), related searches, or tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Surfer SEO.
SEO Rule 3: Understand the Keyword‘s Search Intent
For SEO purposes, it is critical to understand which stage in the buyer’s journey you are writing for. Understanding search intent lets you know how to structure your article—the format and the “content angle.”
Awareness / informational intent: At this stage, online users seek information, educational content, and potential solutions (high level).
Exploration / navigational intent: Online users are interested in reviewing and considering various options.
Transactional/commercial intent: At this stage, online users are ready to buy and looking for information to help them close the deal.
SEO Rule 4: Leverage the Power of Internal Linking
Internal linking is vital for SEO. It helps search engines and online users navigate your website better, crawlers find newer pages, improve the UX (user experience), pass on link juice, and boost SERP ranking.
The following are recommended for internal linking:
- Always link to relevant content,
- Links should be natural and value-adding – do not feel forced to create links
- Use the guide as one link for every two hundred words – don’t overdo it.
- Don’t link with the phrase “learn more.” Describe the page and the reason you are linking a specific page. Be creative in how you prompt the reader to click the link.
Focus on Readability
High engagement with content is a positive signal to Google. Readability impacts the UX and encourages online user engagement, impacting ranking.
Improve readability by using short sentences (use pointers as much as possible) and well-formatted content. It helps readers navigate your content quickly. Highlight the most essential parts of the content. Make effective use of subheadings, bold text, and white space:
- Use the active voice
- Adjust fonts for H1, h2, h3 and h4
- Prioritise space
- Break up long paragraphs. Use 2-3 sentences as a guide for paragraph length.
- Use blurbs for important lines and statistics.
Align with the HCU (Helpful Content Update)
The following are critical in terms of the Helpful Content Update or HCU:
- Create helpful content that is well-researched without the usage of AI.
- Focus on UX—e.g., avoid starting with a two-hundred-word introduction that doesn’t address the user’s query and leaves them searching for more.
- Make use of authoritative and relevant data, sources, and links
- Consider Google’s E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
- Satisfy search intent
SEO Made Easy by an Expert
That was a wrap on SEO basics by an expert.
It always sounds easy when an expert presents a topic. The same is true for SEO. It will be hard work to implement all these fundamental SEO aspects. But these are time and results-proven SEO basics. Your hard work will pay off. You will notice it in the growth of organic search results, higher conversion rates, and, sooner than expected, in your business’s bottom line.
Don’t try it all at once. Keep this post bookmarked. Choose an SEO area where you want to focus. Then, you can return to this article, start with the next one, and so on. You will soon pick up momentum and notice the positive impact on your business.
Most importantly, you are not on your own. Justwords is ready to partner with you on your SEO journey. The Justwords SEO specialists have the experience and know-how to support you and help you expedite your results. Give us a call and speak to one of our consultants.
Don’t delay.
Do it today.
Questions and Answers
- Is it okay to tweak keywords for grammatical correctness, change cases, and add punctuation such as commas and hyphens, etc.?
In general, one uses grammatically correct keywords.
However, it is best not to change the keyword—even if it is grammatically incorrect or misspelled. Users may use the incorrectly spelled keyword in their search. You can correct the spelling in exceptional cases where the spelling is dramatically wrong.
Cleverly use commas and punctuation not to distract the “flow of the keyword.”
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What is link juice?
Every page has a specific authority. If we link a page with a higher authority to a page with a lower authority, the higher authority page shares “SEO link juice” with the lower authority page. The lower authority page gets an SEO boost, and its authority score may improve.
That is why you should be careful which pages you link to to prevent link juice flow to irrelevant pages.
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Is it a good practice to use AI to generate content
We must consider AI in the context of helpful content and Google’s HCU, which, of course, considers eliminating the impact of AI. It gives credibility to helpful, personalized content with a unique view and perspective.
AI can be helpful in many ways; however, content created by AI is generally generic and lacking in uniqueness. It is not recommended to use AI to generate content. Be aware of the risk of losing your creativity and becoming an inferior writer by relying on AI.
However, AI can be useful as a partner for ideas on structure and the “angle” for the content.
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What is the value of readability versus impact factor? Google does not confirm readability as a direct ranking factor.
Readability is very important for UX ( user experience) and includes a few factors, such as:
- Easily understandable content
- Formatting, such as font size
UX (user experience) is critical. Google will notice how much time users spend on your content, and your article will gain in ranking. The opposite is true: If users don’t stay, reflecting a bad UX will negatively affect ranking. Therefore, readability is considered a ranking factor as it impacts user experience.
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What are the most important SEO metrics to measure the success of an SEO strategy?
It is very important to track how the article is performing—especially since you have put so much effort into creating and editing it from an SEO perspective. Apart from tracking how many impressions it is getting, you will also evaluate how many relevant keywords the article is ranking for.
If an article ranks for multiple relevant keywords, your SEO strategy is correct, the content is written correctly, and you get traffic.
The most important metrics to monitor are:
- Number of impressions
- Number of clicks
- How many conversions does an article provide? (to indicate if you are getting any leads)
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What should you do if you get a grammatically wrong keyword that doesn’t fit naturally in the write-up?
It is best to get clarification from your SEO team. There may be a specific strategy for using that particular keyword. They may want to use a particular keyword—even if it is spelled grammatically wrong—because it has the potential for volume.