Two months ago, I considered myself totally naive to all things SEO-related. I had no idea how to properly use keywords, title tags or different headings to jump up the SERP. So I did what curious people do: I started reading blogs, watching webinars and talking with people who know more about SEO than I ever will. Now, I consider myself an unofficial student of an unofficial, ongoing SEO 101 class.
In my quest to become an SEO guru, I recently had the pleasure of watching a Duane Forrester (one of the leading experts in SEO) webinar that taught me more than most other resources I’ve stumbled across combined. You can check out the session I watched right here, and I highly recommend it to anybody wondering why SEO is important or how to get started.
If you don’t have an hour to give up, I’m going to summarize some of the key points I found helpful.
Do I Really Need to Perform SEO:
Yes, now let’s move on.
I kid, but seriously, you need to be performing SEO. At this point, you’re falling behind if you don’t devote at least some resources to SEO. Forrester explained it could be as simple as a WordPress Plugin if you’re running a blog, or it could become a lot more involved if you’ve got a big site. Either way, you need to be spending some time on SEO.
Why Should I Perform SEO:
There is a long list of benefits stemming from SEO. Here are a few major ones Forrester pointed out:
- An increase in visitors
- This may start on your website, but it could lead to in-person visits if you have an actual storefront
- More page views
- An increase in revenue
- If you have an increase in pageviews and visitors, there’s a good chance for you to bring in more money
- Raise the standard for customer/user experience
- If you’re performing SEO well, it means your users will be finding quality content, and they’ll be finding that content with more ease than they’re accustomed to
Things To Know Before You Start:
- You’re not going to be an overnight sensation
- It takes some time to reap the rewards of SEO
- Newly created pages aren’t going to rank high right off the bat
- Know the keywords you need to be going after before you start
- Leverage social media to support your efforts
Where To Spend Your Time:
Forrester hit on six major areas, and they are awesome:
- Crawlability
- Site structure
- On-page
- Content
- Links
- Social
Forrester goes in-depth on most of these, and it’s really worth the watch. He thoroughly explains why each of these areas is worth the time.
Other Tips I Found Useful:
There were a couple other points I found very interesting. The first of those being the need to have a clean URL. If you purchase a domain without doing any research, you may be performing search engine optimization in vain. That domain could’ve previously been used to spam people, and it may be blacklisted. Make sure your domain is clean.
As far as building authority goes, Forrester recommends sharing what you know. He said not to hold back something because you’re scared of someone using your ideas. There’s probably someone out there who has already had your idea. If you share what you know, people will trust you more, and you won’t lose much by sharing.
In Conclusion:
SEO might sound big and scary at first, but when you listen to someone like Duane Forrester break it down, it seems much more doable. Not only is search engine optimization doable, it’s necessary. You need to be putting it to use, or you’ll be left behind. Watch Duane’s SEO 101 video, read blogs and check out other resources because you don’t want to post a lot of good content in vain.