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SEO 101
Search Engine Optimization enables your website to appear at the top of search results for queries related to your site.
The goal for website discoverability is to get your site on the first page of search results.
What Makes Good SEO Content?
The first step in creating quality SEO content is understanding your audience’s interests, but it important to note that this goes beyond your gut feelings or personal experience.
Creating effective content requires a data-driven approach, leading with keyword research. This involves using SEO tools to uncover your audience's pain points, which are represented by "keywords", or search terms.
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Useful SEO tools help identify how to:​
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Create unique content
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Use specific terms for search engine visibility
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Include media that explains your product or service
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Ensure effective internal linking
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Collect user navigation data through your site
SEO Content Writing Guidelines to Remember
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The keyword “taxes” in the image above has a high search volume, but it is difficult to rank for, meaning it's a popular term used across several sites.
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The good news is, keywords can also be a phrase. We call these long-tail and short-tail keywords.
Keywords are essential to helping people find your site, but you can't over-do it. You'll want to avoid "Keyword stuffing", where a high number of keywords are crammed into a piece of content or page, resulting in penalties from Google's search algorithm. For best practice, you'll want to ensure targeted keywords make up no more than 2% of your content.
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For example, in a 600-word page, include a maximum of 12 keywords.
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Focus on the natural integration of keywords to maintain readability.
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Prioritize quality over quantity: It's better to use fewer, well-placed keywords that align with user intent.
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Use synonyms and related phrases to avoid over-repetition while still capturing search intent.
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Avoid using the same keywords on multiple pages to prevent them from competing with each other.
You'll come across other sites that will have similar products or services to yours, which means they'll be using the same keywords that may be difficult to rank for.
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While keywords are crucial, a great website not only identifies audience pain points but also has a clear strategy for competing in those areas.
How to Use Short & Long-Tail Keywords
Using short and longtail keywords can be an excellent strategy to rank for a keyword, by being more specific. Instead of trying to rank for “taxes” or “tax consultant”, you could try to rank for “tax consultants in Atlanta”. The more specific you are, the less competition you will have for a keyword.
You’ll find that a lot of long-tail keyword phrases are not entirely grammatically correct. Let's say, you want to use “best tax consultant Atlanta" but realize, it doesn't make sense in a sentence. ​ It is perfectly acceptable to change the phrase to “best tax consultants in Atlanta” to fit better. All that matters is that the original intent of the phrase is kept intact, and your changes are as minimal as possible.
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Setting up Your Website:
Linking, Page Architecture & More
How your website is structured is equally important as the content placed across your pages. Page linking is a strategy that is crucial when directing a user from one point of a site to another.
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The more sophisticated the linking is throughout your site, the higher chance you have of ranking on Google. The three main type of links are backlinks, external links, and internal links. These links play a key role in SEO and must be implemented for your website to be successful.
Backlinks for SEO
A backlink is a link from a website that directs users to your website. Backlinks are crucial because they signal to Google that your website is valuable and authoritative. Simply put, when another website links to yours, it’s a vote of confidence, telling Google that your content is trustworthy and worth ranking higher.
High-Quality vs
Low-Quality Backlinks
​Although backlinks are important, low-quality backlinks can do more harm to your website than good. The quality of a link is determined by the domain authority of the website linking to you.
Domain authority is one of the most important metrics in SEO. A high Domain authority lets Google know that your website is trustworthy and can provide users with the information they are looking for.
Domain authority is scored on a scale from 0 to 100. However, having a score below 100 doesn’t necessarily mean your website lacks quality. The chart below provides a more detailed breakdown of domain authority and how it reflects your site’s strength.
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The higher the domain authority, the more valuable a backlink is. There are numerous strategies you can use to acquire quality backlinks for your website. Without a backlink strategy, your website will never have a high domain authority and, as a result, will not be able to garner much traffic.
External Links
External links direct users from your website to another website. These are important for several reasons:
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Credibility and Authority
Linking to reputable, high-quality sources adds credibility to your content. It shows both users and search engines that you are providing valuable, well-researched information by referencing authoritative sites.
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Improves User Experience
External links direct readers to additional resources that might provide more in-depth information on a topic, enhancing their overall experience on your site.
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SEO Signals to Google
Search engines see external links as signals of trust. If your content includes relevant, quality external links, it can help Google understand the context of your content and position it more favorably.
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Building Relationships
Linking to other websites can foster relationships with other content creators, leading to potential backlinks to your site in return, which can improve your domain authority.
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Content Relevance
External links help Google understand the topic of your page. If you're linking to authoritative sites in your niche, it reinforces the relevance of your content in that area.
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Diversified Link Profile
Having a balanced link profile with both internal and external links ensures your site doesn't look manipulative to search engines, which might penalize pages that rely too heavily on internal links only.
Internal Links
Internal links send users to another page on your through a link. Internal linking is vital for several reasons such as:
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Improves Site Navigation
Internal links help users easily move between pages on your website, making it more user-friendly. Good navigation keeps visitors engaged, encouraging them to explore more of your content.
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Impacts Search Engines Crawl and Index
Search engines use internal links to discover and index new pages on your site. Proper internal linking ensures that all important pages are easily accessible to search engines, improving the likelihood that they’ll be indexed and ranked.
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Distributes Page Authority
Internal links allow you to distribute link equity (or "link juice") across your site. When a high-authority page links to another page, it passes some of its ranking power, helping the linked page rank better in search results.
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User Engagement & Bounce Rate
By strategically placing internal links within your content, you can encourage users to stay on your site longer and explore more pages. This reduces bounce rate and increases the overall time visitors spend on your site, both of which are positive signals for SEO.
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Guide Users to High-Value Content
Internal linking helps you guide users to key pieces of content, such as cornerstone articles, product pages, or any important information you want to highlight. This helps ensure important pages get more traffic and engagement.
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Organizes Content and Topic Relevance
Internal links help organize your content, creating a logical site structure. They also assist search engines in understanding the relationship between different pages, helping you rank for relevant keywords by creating topic clusters or pillar pages.