This post is a follow on from the introduction to SEO: What is SEO? Read this post before continuing to familiarize yourself with SEO.
From this post, you will learn about the following:
- SEO Starting Points
- On Page SEO
- Explanation of SEO elements
SEO Starting Points
Now that you know the fundamentals of what SEO is and why it is important for your website, let's get working. We will use the example of a website that sells a product called "Unicorn Meat" throughout this tutorial.
First and foremost, think about your website's content: what is it that you want to achieve? Leads, signups etc.
Next, think about the keywords you want to target. Using our example, the main keywords would be “Unicorn Meat”, but along with the main keyword there may other keywords that support this primary keyword. For example:
- what is unicorn meat
- is unicorn meat edible
- canned unicorn meat
- canned unicorn meat ingredients
- unicorn meat for sale
There are endless possibilities of keywords and terms that could be used, however we will work with the above in this tutorial.
Having identified a set of keywords that we would like to target, the next step is to integrate these keywords on our website, a process also known as On Page SEO (see below).
On Page SEO
On page SEO is a way of making sure that your websites pages are as search-engine-friendly as possible.
For example, in the image below, you can see the results generated from a search engine on "unicorn meat". In the results (see red box), the Title Tag of the website's page is highlighted and keywords that match the search are in bold. The description tag is right below and is always displayed in search results.
Read on for explanation of common on page SEO elements.
Explanation of SEO Elements
There are numerous ways to SEO your website, and we will cover the basics here, including:
- Page Title
- The Slug
- Meta Keywords
- Meta Description
- Htags or Heading Tags
- Alt Image Tags
Page Title
The Page Title (the first option on the modal window) is the name of the page, and the single most important SEO element. Title tags are keywords that are used in the Page Title.
The Slug
Immediately under the Page Title is the Slug. This is usually the exact same as the title, and is automatically picked from there. Simply put, it is the URL of the page.
Meta Keywords
These are important terms you want to highlight on particular page. You can have the most general meta keywords on the home page, and then use different words for the other pages of your site according to the actual content. Meta keywords have been losing their relevance – search engines don’t take them into account as much as they used to in the past.
Meta Description
Description is the second meta element, and consists of a short summary of the page. The meta description is what search engines display as part of the description of your website.
H tags or Heading Tags
H tags are both important for SEO and for the typography of your website. H tags help search engines identify what titles of your site's content is important and create a relation between keywords, content and search queries.
Alt Tags on Images
Alternate tags on your images can help search engines find images on your website. Since search engines do not read images it is important to let them know what the image is about.
Having covered the basic ideas of SEO, proceed to the following tutorial on how to edit the above SEO elements on your own website:
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