SEO Pt 1 - How do Search Engines Work and How Do I Rank Higher?

 

In this 8 part series I'm going to teach you all about the ins and outs of SEO so that you can understand SEO fully and use this new understanding to help your blog achieve a higher ranking which will then send more traffic your way. I won't be skimming through it. This guide will provide you with a fairly in depth knowledge of SEO. SEO can seem like a foreign language to some but I hope by writing clearly, simply and concisely that you'll all gain a better understanding of the mechanisms involved.

So let's get started!

First of all let's look at how search engines work. When you visit Google for example and type in a search term the search engine has to search billions of pages and documents. From this search the engine then has to rank them in order of value. To do this it ranks each result by importance and by relevance. Hundreds of different elements can make up your ranking and I'll be exploring these factors in detail throughout this series.


Different search engines generally use different factors to determine the importance ranking of a particular site. But the most common way is to classify importance as popularity. The more popular a site, the higher its importance ranking. They assume that if a site is popular its because the information on that site is of value.

The ranking system is comprised of algorithms. Yes Mathematics makes its way into SEO! The difficulty is that search engines don't disclose the factors that make up the algorithm and for good reason as there are those who would abuse it. But SEO experts have deduced some of the factors involved through insight and research.

So here's some tips on improving your ranking:

• Update regularly


• Increase the number of sites linking to you.


• Write content for users NOT search engines


• Use a menu made up of text links. Every page of your site should be accessible via text links from every other page.


• Create content that is clear and accurate.


• Make post titles descriptive. Song titles for outfit posts will NOT boost your rank.


• Make 'alt' tags descriptive. Images have alt tags. Just look in the HTML editor when you add images to a post.


• Don't have more than 100 links on any page of your site.

That's the end of Part 1. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Remember you can Follow via BlogLovin, Like me on Facebook or sign up by Email to be informed when the next installment goes live.