What is SEO?
SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization". While this once referred to just the process of optimizing your site to ensure search engines could easily crawl and index your site, it's generally understood to include on AND off-page optimization. Off-page optimization means optimizing things like links to your site from other pages.
How do search engines rank pages?
The actual algorithms are, of course, closely guarded trade secrets. But there is an entire industry built around predicting and guesstimating how these algorithms work. There are hundreds of factors that are taken into consideration by the search engines when ranking individual pages, but search engines ask these questions:
How relevant is your site to the keywords being searched?
How many previous searches clicked your link instead of others?
How long did people spend on your site after clicking your link?
Does the site contain a natural (not spammy) concentration of these keywords in a page headers and content.
Does the domain name contain these keywords?
How popular and respected is your site?
How many incoming links does your site have?
Are these incoming links coming from sites with "authority"?
How many people are talking about your site/brand on social media?
Keywords & keyword strategy
Keywords refer to the ideas and themes that determine the subject matter of your content. In the context of SEO, they represent the terms and phrases that people type into search engines when looking for content, commonly known as "search queries." By simplifying all the elements on your page, such as images, videos, and text, to basic words and phrases, you can identify your primary keywords. As a website owner and content producer, it is crucial to ensure that your page's keywords are relevant to what searchers are seeking, as this increases the chances of your content appearing among the results on the search engine results page (SERP).
Keyword strategy
It is important that you create a keyword strategy, IE, a list of keywords that you will be using on your site, and hoping/expecting people to search for. When considering a keyword strategy, consider the number of people potentially searching for this keyword, and the sites that you will be competing with.
keywords for your brand
THE most critical consideration is your brand name. You will want to chose a brand name that has as little keyword competition as possible, so that your site will appear at the top of the search results when people are trying to find you. Pick a name that is extremely unique.
If your brand & site name is "Mia Masters", you'll be competing with 27,700,000 other potential results:
If your brand & site name is "Mia Masters humiliatrix", you will be competing with ZERO other sites and you will rank #1.
Keywords for your content
Ranking for searches for specific types of content is a LOT harder than ranking for a unique brand name, because of the amount of competition. It may not even be worth attempting to rank for content types unless your content is very niche.
Additional keyword resources
An advanced guide to keywords: moz.com/beginners-guie-to-seo/keyword-research
Optimizing your page
Once you have a list of your main keywords, add them to your site.
Add your brand keywords to your site header e.g. "Official homepage of Mia Masters Humiliatrix".
Add your brand keywords to your about me section.
Add any other keywords you are trying to rank for throughout your site. This is best done in the content titles and descriptions.
Summary & to do list
Ensure your brand name is VERY unique.
Ensure your site name and domain name include your keywords (but don't be spammy).
Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console to get your site listed.
Learn more
Have questions about SEO?
We have a number of SEO experts on staff and are very happy to answer questions that are not covered in this article! Just reach us via the live chat to start a dialogue.