Think about the last time you went to find something online. You typed a few keywords into a search engine and up popped the top sites for your subject. Those top sites were determined by your search engine to be the most useful, trustworthy, and informative sites on the subject. Research<\/a> shows that a user will click on only the first five links that pop up before finding what they need or abandoning the search. This is why search engine optimization is a must\u2014if you don\u2019t make the cut, you\u2019re kind of out of the running.<\/p>\n Search engine optimization is making your site attractive enough to a search engine\u2019s algorithms to be picked up in the results, ideally as one of the top five. Although the algorithms are quite complex, you can get \u201cnoticed,\u201d so to speak, by those algorithms if you follow certain SEO rules and best practices. As you can imagine, SEO is a broad subject and certainly not something we can cover in just one blog post. But if you want to use SEO to grow your business, we\u2019ve got the basics here. Think of this as dipping your toes in the water\u2014a way to prepare you to dive into the deep end of the pool.<\/p>\n Something you should know up front is that there are both good and bad practices for optimizing your site, otherwise known as \u201cwhite hat\u201d and \u201cblack hat\u201d<\/a> SEO. White hat refers to optimizing your site without violating any rules (i.e., Google has guidelines<\/a> of what to do\u2014and what not do\u2014in order to catch an algorithm\u2019s attention). Black-hat SEO tactics go against search engine guidelines. If you don\u2019t abide by the rules or follow the guidelines (even unintentionally), Google will penalize you by removing your site or dropping your rankings. And, really, it makes sense. Much like giving someone a personal or business recommendation, a search engine\u2019s purpose is to recommend the best-quality sites. You wouldn\u2019t want to advocate a restaurant that is dirty or has gross food or poor customer service, right?<\/p>\n Now, on to the good stuff: What are the general white-hat guidelines that make your website more attractive to the algorithms? Basically, they\u2019re the same things that make your site attractive to users\u2014on-site and off-site SEO. On-site refers to the practices you use on your site that make it user- and search-engine friendly. Off-site refers to promoting it (think social media) so users will visit your site (increasing traffic) so it\u2019ll go up in rank in search-engine results.<\/p>\n Before you promote your site, you need to make sure it\u2019s worth visiting. Below are a few general tips on creating a beautiful, useful, informative, SE-optimized site.<\/p>\n Domain<\/em>: Choose a name that is easy to remember, avoiding hyphens if you can, and remember:<\/p>\n Theme<\/em>: The software that runs your website should already have SEO-friendly features built into it.<\/p>\n Structure and Maintenance<\/em>: Your website should be clean, simple, and easy to navigate.<\/p>\n Content<\/em>: Even though \u201ccreate great content\u201d sounds like a broken record (that\u2019s still an adequate metaphor, right?), it\u2019s still one of the top tips for a great website. Think of it this way: Would you stay on a site that has little or no valuable information? Or that just leads you to other sites? Or that duplicates content (warning! that\u2019s another black-hat technique)? Be sure to:<\/p>\n As stated above, off-site SEO involves promoting your site so it receives more traffic and is viewed as a useful, trustworthy source. This involves getting backlinks, or link building. When another site links to yours, it\u2019s giving the good information on your site a vote of confidence. The more links you have pointing to your site, the more traffic you\u2019ll get. So how do you get these links? Naturally<\/a> and most importantly, through creating content that deserves to be viewed (see \u201cContent,\u201d above). You can then promote that content via social media channels to attract the attention of webmasters and bloggers and other followers.<\/p>\n Another effective tactic is to link to sites you trust. You can notify a webmaster that you value their content and that you\u2019ve linked to it\u2014and they just may return the favor. A word of warning: one black-hat technique uses artificial links so it looks like a site is receiving a lot of backlinks. However, search engines are more clever than the black hatters. They\u2019ve created a \u201cno-follow\u201d tag you can use in the code to indicate you are not promoting the site you\u2019re linking to, thus absolving you of selling, exchanging, or creating artificial links.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot more to SEO than this skimmed-off-the-top information, but our time is up. If you want to forge ahead on your own, check out this incredible guide from Moz<\/a> on SEO marketing and Reliablesoft.net\u2019s easy-to-read DIY guide<\/a>. And we\u2019d love your feedback on what other SEO practices you\u2019d like to learn about and for you to share some of your SEO tips with our readers. Please leave a comment below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Brief Overview Think about the last time you went to find something online. You typed a few keywords into a search engine and up popped the top sites for your subject. Those top sites were determined by your search engine to be the most useful, trustworthy, and informative sites on the subject. Research shows [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3121,"featured_media":15048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_strive_editorial_status":"not-started","_strive_copy_of":0,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"content-sidebar","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_strive_checklists":"\"\"","_strive_active_checklist":"62291e2bb2422","_strive_post_notes":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[144,1],"tags":[182],"class_list":{"0":"post-14508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"tag-seo","10":"entry"},"acf":{"plans":["scale"],"is_featured":false,"download_source":"none","mothership_slug":"","download_url":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tGood and Bad<\/h4>\n
On- and Off-Site SEO<\/h4>\n
On-Site Best Practices<\/h4>\n
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Off-Site Best Practices<\/h4>\n