Getting Started with SEO: 7 Steps to Follow

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of optimizing web content to make it more visible to search engines and improve its ranking in organic search results. Defining relevant keywords is the first step in creating web content optimized for search engines. By using keywords and creating your topics around them, you'll create content that will respond to Google searches. Before you start adding content to your new site, you need to conduct proper keyword research to find out what words your audience is using when searching for your products or services. The best way to get your website listed on Google is to submit a sitemap. A sitemap is a file on your site that informs search engines about new or changed pages on your site. It's also important to make sure that your Bing and Google My Business listing are set up correctly. SEO is a long-term process and results are rarely immediate, but the first steps you take after launching a new website can have a big impact on the website's potential to rank in Google search by your target keywords and start attracting traffic, leads, and sales. Here are the seven steps you should take every time you launch a new website to make sure it's designed from the start to rank you based on its target keywords and drive as much traffic as possible from organic search: 1. Conduct keyword research: Before starting any active SEO effort, it's important that you make sure your website has content that will attract and help its users. It's best to use the target keyword as close to the start of the title tag as possible for optimal SEO. 2. Submit a sitemap: The best way to get your website listed on Google is to submit a sitemap. A sitemap is a file on your site that informs search engines about new or changed pages on your site. 3. Set up Bing and Google My Business listings: It's also important to make sure that your Bing and Google My Business listing are set up correctly. 4. Implement redirects: How you create redirects depends on the type of website you have. In step 1, you found out where your website was. Now, you'll need to do some research on how to implement a 301 redirect to fix these 404 errors. 5. Create robots.txt and sitemap files: In addition to implementing the sitemap and robots, txt files, it's also important to create an XML sitemap for your website so that search engines can easily find all of the pages on your site. 6. Optimize content: Once you have conducted keyword research and created content around those keywords, it's time to optimize the content for SEO. This includes optimizing titles, meta descriptions, headings, images, and more. 7. Monitor progress: Once you have implemented all of these steps, it's important to monitor progress and track how well your website is performing in organic search results. There are many other valuable SEO tools out there, but these are the best ones to start with to help you learn more about whether your SEO efforts are making a difference.