SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the set of practices and techniques that allow us to optimize our website with the aim of ranking it in the top positions on Google’s search results page (SERPs: Search Engine Results Pages).
There is a joke among SEOs that goes:
• If you had to hide a body, where would you do it?
• On the second page of Google results.
So, you know, if you don’t want to be forgotten, you must work on your website’s SEO!
Here is an example of how the keyword “motorcycle insurance” appears in the search results:
We see that after the Google search ads results, the best-ranking websites appear. Ideally, you want to be among the top three search results, and it is crucial to aim to rank within the top 10. Being ranked 11th or beyond will place you on the second page of search results.
There are two main aspects to consider when we want to understand SEO and optimize our web pages. The first is On-Page SEO, which refers to everything we can do ourselves within our website. The second is known as Off-Page SEO and involves those external ranking factors that we cannot control.
Let’s go into more detail:
Tabla de contenidos
What is On-Page SEO?
As we mentioned, On-Page SEO involves everything we, as website owners, can control. Let’s go point by point:
Title
The title of your page. Each page on the website should have an optimized title that considers the following:
• Unique: differentiated from other titles on the website.
• Length between 50 and 65 characters.
• Descriptive: clearly indicates what the page is about.
• Includes the keyword you want to rank for.
Metadescription
The meta description is a short text summarizing the page’s content. To optimize it, we should add the main keyword and a CTA that encourages user action. The length should be appropriate, currently optimized at around 156 characters.
Headings
It’s also important to have a proper structure of headings: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc. These headings mark the sections of your webpage in a hierarchical order. Simply put, <h1> is the headline, <h2> is the subheadline, and so on. You should only use one <h1> per page and use <h1> and <h2> to include your target keywords. Follow a logical order and avoid skipping headings, like going from <h1> to <h3> without including an <h2>.
URLs
URLs are another optimizable point. Avoid using spaces (which appear as “%20”) or strange characters like accents or “ñ”, and ensure they are not excessively long. The URL should also include the keyword you want to rank for.
ALT Attributes
ALT attributes, or alternate text, were initially intended to help visually impaired individuals understand the content of an image. This attribute indicates the content of the image used.
Website Structure
The structure of the website is another factor you can optimize. It’s important for Google to understand the structure of your website. Ideally, your site should not have more than three levels (i.e., you should be able to access any page on your site with a maximum of three clicks).
Internal linking
Internal linking is a very important point to consider. It can help highlight the importance of specific pages you want to emphasize. For example, those that convert the most and help achieve your objectives should receive more links from other pages on your site.
Keywords
As we have mentioned, it’s important to select and work on the keywords you want to rank for on your website. This involves researching which keywords are relevant to you through keyword research and using them in your content.
Contenu
Creating relevant, unique, and original content is one of the (if not the most) important factors in an SEO strategy. You should create organic (not forced) content using the keywords you want to rank for naturally. Good content helps attract potential users proactively. Additionally, it can encourage others to talk about you, which is crucial for Off-Page SEO, as we will see next.
What is Off-Page SEO?
Off-Page SEO or Off-Site SEO is the other major aspect to consider when discussing SEO. As we mentioned earlier, it takes into account those factors that also influence the ranking of our website but are theoretically beyond our control: our link profile.
Backlinks
Backlinks are a fundamental element to consider. They can help you gain reputation and relevance, thereby achieving better rankings. It is important to obtain a good number of quality links from other relevant domains, especially in saturated markets with many competitors, as this can give us authority that can place us above them.
Authority measures the quality of our link profile. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 100 (the closer to 100, the better) and is important because it is one of the factors Google considers when ranking our web pages in search results. The key aspect of authority is not having a value close to 100, but having higher authority than your competitors.
Link Building
Link building is based on a strategy of constructing incoming links. It is used to obtain links from third-party websites that point to our site. By getting quality links, as mentioned, we will help improve our authority and, therefore, our organic ranking.
The most common way to do link building is through the purchase of links. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the links should not be forced, but as natural as possible, relevant, and using a natural anchor text. Otherwise, we could be penalized.
For example: If we manage a hotel’s website, it may be relevant to have travel blogs or influencers talk about their experiences during their adventures and link to us naturally. On the other hand, if we receive many links from a website that talks about, for instance, video games, we would be getting links that have little or nothing to do with our sector and that will not help our ranking.
Organic links
These are the links you obtain naturally. Typically, you will get them by doing things right. This type of link is obtained when others talk about us without us asking for it.
In all these mentioned cases, the domains that will provide us with the most authority are those of relevant organizations, such as universities or government pages, among others.