SEO 101: Behind the SEO Scene

SEO often involves the concerted effort of multiple people with different skill sets. So basically people working on a SEO project must have the ability to collaborate and work with cross-functional teams.

Unarguably technical people who understand search engines is essential. They need to continuously monitor and update the site to keep up with the ever changing ranking algorithms of different search engines.

Another important part of the work would entail business analysis. We can imagine we need to pitch search engines and sell them the reasons why they need to give our website a top ranking.

SEO doesn’t work without entertaining or useful information. This requires search, copy-writing and creative for making high-quality contents. When these contents are delivered, the web developer has to put them into the website, in a way that is attractive and easy to find. Sometimes we may even need a project manager to oversee the implementation for a sizable project.

For the sake of helping SEO newbies to easily understand what necessary works and techniques have to be put into a SEO project, we broadly divided the SEO process into 4 major areas: Keyword Research, Content Creation, Building Backlinks and Technical SEO. In the following paragraphs we’ll be looking in each of these areas what they are about.

Keyword Research

Keywords are the foundation of SEO. Find the RIGHT keywords that are WORTH TARGETING. These are those words or phases your target audiences use when they look for your products or information online.

We do not just make a list of target keywords we fantasy for. We need someone who firmly understands the business goal of the company to do it. They know who their customers are. They can speak the language of them. And they are also absolutely sure what problem their company is trying to solve for their customers.

Once the ‘seed list’ is created, we need to refine it and zero in on the best keywords. Realistically not all keywords on the list are worth to target. They may either be too difficult (for a new website) or don’t generate the desire traffic and conversion.

Content Creation

After finding out what keywords we need to target. We need to start to create high quality contents with those keywords integrated into them to make our website more relevant. By quality contents we mean contents that are likable, easy-to-read and understand. And at the same time they must be useful, compelling and valuable. Viewers want and they are more likely to share entertaining or helpful materials that provide them with answers to their questions.

So this is where SEO copy-writers and creative photographers and videographers come into play. Remember a blank page is not going to land anywhere on the SERP.

Building Backlinks

Search engines view backlinks as ‘votes’ for the popularity and relevance of websites. But not just quantity, quality matters too. Not all backlinks are created equal.

Although at the heart of generating backlinks is creating great contents, some sites get links just because they pitch themselves well. To target for authoritative websites’ linkings, we need someone who knows what the websites we reach out is looking for and speak to that in our request.

For that matter we need someone with a strong salesperson mindset. That they are able to prospect and take website owners from the early stage of awareness to a closed linking agreement.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to improving the technical aspects of a website. A technically sound website is fast, secure and mobile-friendly for users. While it is easy to crawl for search engine robots, it also prevents possible confusion to search engines caused by duplicate contents and broken links. And by implementing a clear site hierarchy and proper structured data, it will to help search engines to get a total understanding about your website more easily.

This role is to be filled by someone who understands the technical requirements of organic search, conversion funnels, web analytics, UX/ UI and information architecture design.

Better User Experience

If we drill into the details, SEO is a massive topic that covers everything from research, brand marketing, making a great website, social media strategy to performance analytics. With the vast proliferation of connected devices, we will also need to keep an eye closely on new searcher behaviors, particularly the growing significance of the use of voice and location search (with Google and Apple Map).

What will not change are the following 2 principles

1. Focus on making every aspect of your website shine.
2. Always keep the users in mind. You need to provide answers, interesting stories and useful materials to match their search intent.

This article just scratches the surface of what SEO newbies need to know and consider before start working on their own plan. We hope you liked it. To learn more about building a long term SEO Strategy, get a copy of our FREE SEO Guide: Implementing a Holistic and Sustainable SEO Strategy.