Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines actually search, or crawl, other websites in order to answer their users' questions. Search engines see relationships between keywords and attempt to identify the intent of the user, making SEO important.

By making your website easier to find, your ranking on the search engine results page goes up. If you aren't one of the top four organic search results (meaning not a paid ad - on the page), people will not be making their way to your page, resulting in a lower Domain Authority (DA) ranking, affecting website quality and trustworthiness rating. 

Define Your Audience

Identify your target audience, what they need, and how they can take action based upon the information you are providing.

This is important as it:

  • helps you develop appropriate keywords
  • keeps content concise and to the point
  • helps you determine if information is appropriate for your website versus another medium such as email
Keywords and Page Titles

Keywords

Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. In terms of SEO, they're the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, also called "search queries." If you boil everything on your page — all the images, video, copy, etc. — down to simple words and phrases, those are your primary keywords. Keywords are as much about your audience as they are about your content, because you might describe what you offer in a slightly different way than some people ask for it. As a website owner and content creator, you want the keywords on your page to be relevant to what people are searching for so they have a better chance of finding your content among the results. When multiple pages target the same keyword, the page highest in the site architecture will typically have more value

Best Practices

  • Avoid keyword stuffing

Page Title

It's best to write the page title last. Once you've written the content, writing a concise and information-filled page title will be easier. Titles show up at the top of a browser in browser tabs and in search results. Each page should have a different title specific to that pages theme.

Best Practices

  • Place keyword toward the front of the page title
  • Every page should target a different concept
  • Optimal length is 55-60 characters
  • Create titles that answer questions: How to? Why do?
  • Use cardinal numbers
  • Describe succinctly the value you provide
Headings

Headings are important in SEO. They help search engines find your and structure your content. Using headings make your content accessible to those who need to use screen readers, due to visual impairment. Here's a way to think of the organization:

Heading 1 (H1)

  • Main topic or title of page (headline)
  • Created automatically when a page is created (page title)
  • Only one per page

Heading 2 (H2)

  • Sub-topic of Heading 1
  • Multiple per page

Heading 3 (H3)

  • Sub-topic of Heading 2
  • Multiple per page

Best Practices

  • Use the primary keyword in the H1 tag
  • Use keyword at the beginning of tag if possible
  • Use related topic keywords in additional headings (H2, H3, etc.)
  • Use H2 and H3 to optimize for additional keywords
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