[ WordPress SEO Basics #2] SEO Introduction

SEO Introduction

In this post we explain why doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the various factors affecting SEO. We then list out the tools we use for wordpress SEO (tools will be explained in more detail at later posts).

Getting More Web Search Traffic

SEO is all about increasing traffic from search engines like Google or Bing. One of the major ways people get to your website is via search engines d7bzfxy. The process is as follows:

1. The search engine regularly sends programs (“bots”) to read your website and try to understand it (“index your site”).
2. The user key into a search engine for a keywords.
3. Based on its website database, the search engine determines the websites relevant to the keywords as search results.
4. The search engine returns search results as a list. The more relevant one is put  at front.
5. The user scrolls down the results and click them.

Therefore, the goal SEO tries to achieve is, for the specific keywords users use, try making our website to be as much likely to be clicked as possible in the search results.

Why Can’t We Just Create Good Content

You might ask: “Isn’t creating large amount of good content enough?” Well sadly this is not true.

As there are countless website data, search engines use algorithms and programs (called “bots”) to automatically visit website, gather data (“index a site”), rank them for a specific keywords, and displays them.

The focus here is automation. Search engines don’t use humans to read your content but bots instead. And bots read (“index”) website differently than humans.

Therefore, in order to have your website appear properly in front of your users, it has to first be properly indexed by bots. Your website has to have good content not just for humans, but bots as well.

Thus, think of SEO as creating content and structuring your website for the bots.

Factors Affecting SEO Ranks

Since it is the bots that read your website, knowing how they read your site (“their algorithms”) is the main focus of SEO. This includes several factors:

1. Adding required meta data

To let bots easily understand your site, search engines like Google explicitly ask developers to include specific structured data, or meta data in your site. These data is invisible to human viewers but easily readable for bots.

Generated meta data example.

In practice we use automatic tools like Yoast SEO plugin to specify data from the admin panel, and let the plugin to automatically add data into each webpage.

2. Having Good Website (HTML) Structure

Another structured data that the bots can easily understand is your site’s HTML structure. Having a well structured site makes the bots easily understand your site.

3. Good Site Loading Performance

Lastly, your site’s loading speed also affects how well the bots think your site is. A fast loading site is also considered better for human users, as they can spend less time waiting.

4. Keyword Strategy

Lastly, the SEO data and site’s content must correspond well to what users are searching. As users use many different keywords, picking some that are competitive for your site also requires research and careful thoughts.

Since keyword strategy is a huge subject that includes a lot of business/marketing knowledge, we will not cover this topic here (for now).

SEO Tools Overview

Here is a list of tools we will use for SEO. We will introduce them in more detail later. The tools here are mainly for Google, the current dominated search engine.

Monitoring/Feedback Tools

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)

WordPress SEO Date Generator/Configuration

• Yoast SEO

Website Structure Check

• W3 Validator

Website Loading Speed Test

•  Google PageSpeed Insights

More Resources:

[ WordPress SEO Basics #1] Overview

Building a WordPress Multiple Topics Blog

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