SEO 101: Cracking the (Not-So-Secret) Code

The concept of search engine optimization is often intimidating to creatives like us. It doesn’t have to be. Photo courtesy of Merakist via Unsplash.com.

If you’re anything like me, the concept of search engine optimization, or SEO, might be painfully intimidating. It’s a seemingly vague term, a secret code that tech startups use to make their marketing go viral and their sales swell. For solopreneurs and creatives on the less-tech-savvy end of the spectrum, it can feel enormously daunting, an idea so foreign that we doubt our ability to understand it before we even begin to try.

When I started putting together my first website, the idea of developing my site’s SEO all on my own was entirely alien and absolutely terrifying. I thought, “I’m an artist who writes fantasy stories about dragons and magic for crying out loud, not code! Not even sci-fi! I can’t possibly learn how to do this…”

But I did eventually break down and crack open an SEO handbook to try and decipher this secret language of techies and hackers. You know what I discovered?

SEO is simple.

No, really! If I, a cloud-headed poet who usually needs her boyfriend to show her how to swap the audio output on her own laptop, can learn how to optimize my search engine rankings, you absolutely can!

Ready to dive in and learn how? Let’s go!

First up: What the heck is SEO?

Search engine optimization is the process of increasing your website’s ranking in search engine results (specifically Google), using specific techniques and practices.

The tricky thing to remember about SEO is that only so much of it is actually within your power to control. This is by design — if it were easy to change a website’s rankings inorganically, the internet would be a far more manipulable and deceptive place than it already is.

SEO development is not a one-time event — it is an ongoing effort throughout the life of your website. It’s also not an overnight fix — rising in the ranks requires a strong strategy, analysis, flexibility, and plenty of time and patience.

There are three fundamentals that SEO best practices revolve around. They are:

• Discovery: you want your specific audience to be able to find and access your website and its offerings
• Relevance: you want that audience to be made up of folks who find your website’s offerings to be relevant and useful to their queries
• Authority: you want your audience (and Google’s robot crawlers) to feel confident in your website’s accuracy and legitimacy

The goal of SEO best practices is not merely to increase your rankings blindly, but rather to increase your ranking in the very specific searches your audience will be making. Put more plainly, you’re not trying to be the #1 result for every single Google search; you’re trying to be the #1 result for the people who are (either intentionally or unintentionally) looking for you.

When your audience asks a question, you want to be the one with the best answer. Photo courtesy of Duncan Meyer via Unsplash.com.

So, how do I actually do SEO?

There are two action areas to focus on as you audit your site for SEO best practices: on-site SEO, which refers to the optimization of the copy and content on your website, as well as its HTML/coding; and off-site SEO, which encompasses just about anything that drives traffic to your website or otherwise impacts your SEO ranking which does not originate from your own website (mostly, this comes in the form of backlinks, or links to your website posted by other reputable websites).

Let’s go over both types, and how to implement actual changes in your website that will optimize your search rankings.

On-Site SEO: Accessibility for all.

On-site SEO is all about making your website accessible to any and all who may wish to come to it, regardless of whether or not they are your audience. Your website has got to be accessible — period. Bots have to be able to crawl it efficiently, and humans have to be able to get digestible information from it.

Start with this checklist of tasks to make sure that every page of your website is fully optimized for robots and humans alike.

• Use keywords wisely — Keywords are perhaps the most well-known aspect of SEO, but they’re far from the simplest. An SEO keyword is a word or phrase that is used strategically within your on-page content to correspond to your audience’s search engine queries. For example, if your website sells handmade leather shoes, your obvious keywords might include “handmade shoes,” “leather shoes,” or various recombinations thereof.
• However, your best friend is the long-tail keyword. Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific search queries. While a general search query, such as “shoes” (to continue with our previous example) would produce many millions of results, a long-term keyword such as “locally handmade leather clogs in Denver” or “handmade red leather espadrilles available online” would produce far fewer, but far more relevant answers.
• The vast majority — about 70% — of searches made on Google are for these long-tail keywords. This means that by using long-tail keywords, you may not rank as highly in generalized searches, but you will be much more likely to rank highly in searches made by members of your target audience. (Check out this link for another super-helpful visual aid regarding long-tail keywords.)
• Keywords should be used sparingly throughout all content, but with careful intent. They’re best placed in headers or titles, and at the very beginning and very end of sections of body text. They’re also useful in metadata and alt-text.
• However, make sure to avoid “keyword stuffing,” or overusing keywords to try to artificially increase search rankings. Not only does that severely impact the quality of your written content, it will also be indexed as untrustworthy or as outright spam by crawler bots. A good rule is to check to ensure keywords make up no more than 2–3% of your total word count
• Ensure all images contain alt-text — Alt-text (also called “alt tags” or “alt descriptions”) refers to the description of an image which appears in place of the image (not to be confused with a caption, which accompanies an image). Alt-text is visible when an image fails to load, but more importantly it provides a description of images for seeing impaired folks who use screen-readers. Ensure all images are accompanied by clear, concise, descriptive alt-text (usually a dozen words is ideal).
• Check your metadata, titles, descriptions, and headlines — Make sure you have concise and clear metadata included in all descriptions, and that headings and subheadings are properly tagged (this will mean digging into your HTML; for help with this, check out this link).
• Include soft calls to action — use buttons or hyperlinks to encourage your site visitors to engage in some way: to sign up, register, connect, or shop.
• Consider adding a Global Canonical URL Tag — Though not always necessary, a global canonical URL tag can help crawler bots to properly index your site and its pages.
• Include supporting links — No matter what you’re writing about, it’s incredibly important to link in existing support. Just like in high school, you’ve got to show that you didn’t just make up whatever you’re saying, and that your stance is supported by others. This is a major way to increase your legitimacy within the eyes of your audience as well as the crawler bots.

Now, depending what platform you’re using to build/host your website, there will be different ways to go in and make these changes on your site’s back-end. If you’re not sure how to proceed, a quick google search for the specifics, such as “How do I add alt-text to photos in Wix?” will turn up some excellent tutorials and resources.

Linking your site to a Google Analytics account, or other analysis service, is a great way to learn about your current search engine rankings. Photo courtesy of Stephen Phillips via Unsplash.com.

Off-Site SEO: Baby got backlinks!

Off-site SEO is all about increasing your site’s authority and relevance. There are tons of different ways to build up that network of backlinks, and depending on the offerings of your website, there could be a whole niche network to tap into.

Here are some of the simplest and most effective methods to optimize outside the realm of your own website:

• Collaborate, cross-post, and guest-post — Reach out to the owners of related websites to collaborate on a mutually beneficial project. This can be as simple as asking them to share a link, or as major as a full-on cross-promotional event. Do them a favor by offering to write a guest blog, or to share some infographics that are relevant to their audience as well as your own. (Asking politely, without pressure or begging, and accepting any rejections gracefully will get you very, very far with this).
• Share on social media — Encourage your social media followers to repost, tag friends, or share everything you post. Interaction in general is important to your social media rankings, but those social media stats will also drive traffic to your site and improve your search engine rankings.
• Be your own publicist — Reach out to local and/or relevant news outlets, publications, podcasts, and promotional outlets to get your website talked about, especially if it’s new!
• Interact with other sites — Your brand should have its own presence on numerous other websites. Pop a few videos onto YouTube or TikTok, create a few playlists on Spotify, or comment on a relevant Medium or blog post, and link them all back to your website and/or social media. Every time your brand appears on the web, it helps build your website’s authority.
• Incorporate and share high-quality images, videos, and documents -Creating good content is the most effective way to impact your search rankings , especially visual content that is easily shareable (we’ll talk more about content creation for SEO later)
• Add an RSS Feed Subscription box to your site — RSS Feeds are still a thing, and people do still use them! Even if you only have a handful of subscribers, that relationship will be far more impressive to the Google crawler bots than millions of one-time clicks.
• Sponsor something — Sponsoring creative or charitable ventures is an incredible way to increase your audience, both on and off the internet. By choosing carefully what ventures to sponsor, you can zero in on a particular type of audience and build their confidence in your brand.

In my opinion, off-site SEO can be one of the easiest ways to build your website’s credibility if you really keep at it. The trick is simply to persevere: keep putting yourself and your website out there, every day.

Your audience should be able to find you in many ways, not just by searching for you on Google. Photo courtesy of Austin Distel via Unsplash.com.

Finally: A word on creating content for SEO

High-quality content is truly the best way to improve SEO, but it’s not as straightforward as dropping a keyword here and there. Always:

• Know who your audience is, and know what they are coming to your site to find — In trying to appeal to a general audience, you may be neglecting the needs of your specific audience. Not everyone is part of your audience, and that’s okay — you wouldn’t market ballet shoes to football players, even if there’s a dancer or two on the team. As you learn more about your customers, you’ll also learn how to reach them more efficiently.
• Use supporting links — Prove that you’re legit by providing factual, reputable sources to back up your arguments and ideas.
• Create high-quality content and reliable information — No matter how good the product is, a poorly-written description isn’t going to sell it to anyone. Every piece of content on your website should be held to the highest standards possible, and should be carefully edited and proofread before publication.
• Write plainly and clearly — Make sure the information you’re presenting isn’t wrapped up in flowery language or hidden behind your personal filter. Use a strong, active voice and specific language, and make sure that your brand’s “voice” is coming through loud and clear.
• Be generous with your information — Remember, people expect to get something from your website whether or not they buy/join/follow anything. Your website is often looked upon as a free sample of your main offering — be generous with what you put there.

Now, go forth and optimize!

Again, I want to reiterate — if I can do this, so can you! I hope this (very cursory guide) to SEO will be helpful in getting you started. Don’t worry — you’ve got this. And if you need any support along the way, you’re always welcome to send me a message via my website.

— LL

Further resources for developing your SEO knowledge and best practices:

Neil Patel: This guy knows everything about SEO, and has written extensively on the subject. Check out his website for free tools, resources, and articles to grow your understanding and your site.

Moz.com: Software solutions (including a wicked-useful and totally free search bar extension, MozBar) and services for smarter, better SEO.

SEO Starter Guide by Google: A fabulous beginner’s handbook, this PDF walks you through the basics of getting started off right.

Ahrefs SEO Tools: Excellent tools and resources for learning about SEO and digital marketing, including free video courses. (There’s a 7-day free trial!)

Alexa On-Page SEO Checklist: A detailed 33-point checklist for optimizing your on-page content.

No, really! If I, a cloud-headed poet who usually needs her boyfriend to show her how to swap the audio output on her own laptop, can learn how to optimize my search engine rankings, you absolutely can!

Ready to dive in and learn how? Let’s go!