Do you know the top-ranked websites in Google search has a 32% click-through rate? To help your brand grow organically you must create an SEO-optimized funnel. If you are eager to learn how to 2x your ROI organically check out this ultimate guide to SEO fundamentals and SEO success factors.
What is SEO?
SEO, the acronym for Search Engine Optimization, is a set of practices that organically improve the positioning and appearance of a website in the search results. A strong strategy is vital to enhance the quantity and quality of the online traffic to your website.
How does SEO Contribute To A Business’s Growth?
Strategic SEO planning creates an undeniable impact on revenues and the growth of a business. In the UAE, more than 60% of companies consider SEO a crucial factor to online success. Moreover, one-third of consumers use search engines to hunt down local businesses every day. Not only this, Google processes around 8.5 billion searches a day. When it comes to web traffic, 57.8% of users come from Google.
If you are willing to learn about SEO fundamentals let's clear one thing, there is no secret sauce or shortcuts. You need to understand how algorithms work and how you can utilize some techniques to drive better conversions and higher traffic to your sites. So, let's begin the read below.
How does SEO Work?
Search engine optimization works on some set of rules. You need to make certain changes in your website design, improvise your content and build a strong organic foundation for your brand.
SEO branches out into three fundamental techniques.
- Technical SEO is the foremost as it involves building such web infrastructure that can satisfy what the search engine crawlers are looking for.
- On-Page SEO revolves around improvising content and indexing the most searched keywords. Last is
- Off-Page SEO creates authentic links and references to make your website appear at the top ranks.
How do Search Engines Rank Websites?
Search engines focus on providing accurate and valuable information to users. They follow the three fundamental actions to accomplish it: crawling, indexing and ranking.
These actions help in locating newly published content, which is stored on their servers and organized for consumption.
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Crawling: Web crawlers, commonly known as bots, review website content and pay close attention to details. They ponder on data such as sitemaps and URLs.
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Indexing: Once the spiders or bots have thoroughly crawled the website the search engines organize the information and review the website for positive or negative rankings. These websites and the information are then stored in a specific location on the server.
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Ranking: During the process of indexing a website attains its specific rank. The search engine decides where to present the information on SERPs. Factors like end users' queries for relevancy and quality matter while ranking a website.
SEO Fundamentals To Optimize Your Website
The UAE market is vast and diverse. It opens avenues for business if utilized strategically. With the help of SEO, businesses maximize their organic reach to penetrate the market. Search engine optimization revolves around strategies that create a brand experience based on the search results. Follow the below-mentioned key SEO fundamentals to create an organic reach and establish your brand's positioning based on the Google SEO guide.
1 - SEO-Friendly Web Design
To let your users navigate to your site you need to have an optimized website design. This does not refer to how engaging your website looks but to some technical aspects that need to be enhanced.
- Make it mobile-friendlier
- Seamless website structure
- Make features accessible
- Play with visuals- file format, image compression, alt text
- Improve your page speed
- Enhance the Linking structure
- Improvise UX and Navigation structure
2 - Create Content For People (Not For Bots)
You have often heard about the need to index keywords and compose content in a way that bots can read it and ultimately bring your link to the top. Well, shrug such tips off and follow this one. You need to optimize your content for the people. Offer them detailed, easy to comprehend and valuable pieces of information. Try to cover all the areas of confusion and answer each individually. In this way, you can cover a long list of keywords along with giving value through your content.
On average the top positioned websites have around 1400 to 1500 words on the first page. You need to go for long-form content. If it's about copywriting, try to cover the topic from a broader perspective. Secondly, make use of several content distribution types like:
- eBooks
- Podcasts
- Vlogs
- Infographics
- Carousels
3 - A 360° Search Optimization Approach
- Along with optimizing the different parts of a search result, applying SEO methodologies to several other platforms that have your brand presence is an important aspect of the SEO starter guide.
- These are App store optimization, Google My Business optimization, YouTube channel optimization, Social media optimization, and vertical search engine and third-party sites. These platforms can help you take a leap to success and strengthen your visibility in the search engine.
- When a user enters a query, it's not just the top links that matter but all the different ways a search engine provides the information that you must capture. Three main areas to optimize your ranking on search engines based on the searched query: Google News, Google Panel and People Also Ask.
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a. News & Social Content
- The first part to optimize includes Google news and social content. For Google News, you need to work on understanding how keywords perform. Google News helps brands gain greater visibility and attract prospective leads.
- Secondly, when it comes to social media adoption rates, UAE shows the highest contribution in the MENA region. The following are the high-traffic social media sites in UAE:
- YouTube: 8.65 million
- Instagram: 6.68 million
- Facebook: 7.77 million
- LinkedIn: 4.42 million
- Hence, you need to stay more interactive with your audience. Give them an avenue to connect with your brand on a daily basis. Create informative videos, carousels, vlogs and posts instead of blankly promoting your services. This will help you enhance your brand appearance through social content.
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b. Google Knowledge Panel
- A Google Knowledge Panel is the information box that appears on the right-hand side of Google when you search for any entity (people, place, organization or thing). There is no secret sauce to creating it on your own. You can only contribute content distributed in several other areas on the search engine. The bots directly pull the content and create a knowledge panel for you. A Google Knowledge Panel depicts the authenticity of your website and pushes it to the ranking positions. It provides the basic information including address, business type, name, logo, details of founders, a glimpse of clientele and a short bio about your business.
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c. People Also Ask
- People Also Ask is a section that gives an avenue to SEO professionals to target a broader segment of the audience. The feature presents content directly pulling in with the search results. It opens relevant areas to cover for a query. With this feature, you can work on content optimization on several queries and keywords.
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4 - Webmaster Tools To Monitor Your SEO Campaigns
- The top Webmaster tools arm your brand with a cutting-edge toolkit to monitor the growth and performance of your SEO campaigns. You get to analyze and interpret your website's representation in the search engine.
- The SEO tools give you deep insights about:
- The traffic to your site
- Top ranking keywords
- Positions of your keywords
- Pages indexed on the search engine
- Critical issues and lacking to work on
- The leading Webmaster tools are KEYLOGS, Baidu Webmaster Tools, Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.
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Wrap Up
- On the whole, SEO professionals need to work on the crucial SEO factors to optimize their brands. These include content quality, authentic links, and website authority. It's compulsory to have a long-term vision for your SEO campaigns to gain optimum progress.
- That’s what we do at ConnectIn Digital, a promising SEO agency in UAE. We drive conversions through our results-oriented SEO campaigns that comprehensively cover all the areas of search results.
