The SEO Puzzle is More Than Just the Corner Pieces
The puzzle that is SEO in the current climate of the web is larger and more dynamic than most people realize. There is not one quick fix to your website that will give you sustainable long term ranking success. To be successful and have longevity you need to fit all of the pieces, On Page, Off Page, Site Archiecture, and Coding, together.
The infographic below goes deeper into these categories, but we will take a look at what good SEO looks like in each of these buckets:
On Page Content
When it comes to On Page Content the discussion begins and ends with Quality Content, the more unique and relevant your content, the easier it will be to find your site the better you will rank.
No matter how good you Quality Content is without the right Keywords you will basically be throwing pickles against the window to see which one sticks. With the research and proper useage you will be able to captalize on what and how visitors are using keywords to find your site.
Just like on your Facebook Page you have to look at the end Engagement of your website. Are visitors engaging with your latest video or do they hit your page and bounce? Keep an eye on how your site engages users, Google wants to send people to sites that will help them, make it easy.
The last piece of the On Page Content corner is Freshness. Your content should always have a “sell by date” and once it starts to get stale it is time for a refresh. This makes visitors and search engines happy.
Website Coding
Is your site easily read and crawled by search engines? If the answer to either parts of that question are no, the you’ve got some updating to do. The Crawlability of your site is tied to everything from the URL Structure you chose to how your Meta Tags are filled out. Don’t forget to make sure all your links and images are accurately tagged and titled too!
Website Architecture
How your site is coded is only part of the the game, the overall Website Architecture is just as important. Does your site load quickly or does it take time to load? Website Speed is one of those key factors search engines look at when ranking your site. Have multiple Categories and Products on your site? Give them each their own page, search engines love that. Is your site reletaviely flat or do you have a mess of links that go nowhere and link back to nothing? The Hierachy of how your site flows is very important to how easily all of your content can be crawled and indexed.
Off Page Factors
The last corner of this SEO Puzzle is the Off Page Factors, that is how well you do in Social Media, are you an authority on your subject matter on Facebook? Do you have a ton of +1’s? All of this helps (it also ties in nicely to your Content and the overall freshness of your work). Other big factors are Links coming to your site. Do you have your site listed in online directorys? Do you regularly go to other blogs and sites to comment and engage, while leaving a link back to your site? If you do, nicely done. If not… get on it.
As you can see there is A LOT of work that goes into the puzzle that is SEO, and with each corner of the SEO puzzle there is overlap, but at the end of the day it takes having the right puzzle pieces in the right places to capitalize on getting your site found, engaging visitors and making conversion.
Vayu Media put together an infographic below it takes you through the puzzle of SEO. Or rather, through the importance of the way Google indexes websites.
