Defining what SEO is easy. Difficult put it into practice.

Defining what SEO is easy…

Difficult, if not experienced and with much work, is put it into practice.

As many non-experts in the field already know, with the word SEO we mean a set of techniques to jump a page or a whole site in the head, or at least among the first results, in search engines (in Google, being the number one undisputed).

A few years ago the term was unknown to most people. Today, those who invest in a company or personal site already know that their work, without optimization, risks being useless.

But how is the SEO implemented?

Answering in a few lines would be dishonest (there are entire books on the subject and many are not even exhaustive), but you can give some tips to clarify some key points.

First of all, SEO is not included by default in the construction of a website. The first is a consequence of the second. So, to say that if you make a site to a web agency the SEO is implicitly included, it is wrong. Only some best practices can be integrated knowing the business model of the customer.

This is because, beyond the individual techniques, doing SEO is a job that requires a lot of preparation and, above all, analysis and time.

Normally, it takes months to see the first tangible results. And, once obtained, the positioning must be maintained, otherwise it is lost in favour of more fierce competitors.

Moreover, those who physically make the website are not always a SEO specialist. This is because both figures need different technical training.

Surely, in SEO, keywords, repetitions, text layouts and images are very important, but there’s a lot more behind it: Google’s variable algorithms (which experts know but can not claim to know), backlinks (or third party sites, possibly with good reputation and with many visitors, pointing to my page), social links.

Some aspects, however, are merely technical and should be set during the construction of the site: the choice of a reliable, fast and possibly local server; the possession of an SSL encryption certificate; the chosen domain(s) name(s), the meta-descriptions into the source code, the semantics of the hyperlinks, the lightness of the text, the arrangement of the paragraphs. Even the code of the website itself is very important (with standards and best practices) and so on.

There is another factor of primary importance: the number of competitors and the weight of industry giants, which often act as “blockbusters” to the entire category.

For example, in the tourism sector, to be among the first hotels in Europe (or any other area of the world) is very difficult, since (unless the client directly searches for the name of the structure) the results of Booking.com, will almost certainly appear, Trip Advisor and probably some other container site, or online travel agencies or Tour Operators.

As anticipated, what is needed for a site is first of all continuity. You cannot do SEO only one time and then hope that everything will be set: every site, to be able to do well on search engines, must be perceived “alive” by Google. Seniority and amount of traffic do all the rest.

SEO marketing tools every pro should know

By Michael O’Neill, 2017, @brafton.com
(which I find quite realistic and at the same time “complex” in terms of implementation, time and resources).

Here is a quick list to make your search engine optimization targeted, relevant and measurable.