7 SEO Tips You Can Try Yourself

It is no news that in this age and here in Nigeria, most people do their research using Google, before settling for what service or product they will want to go for. So it would be terrible if this is the first time you are hearing about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

It is not all doom for you though, because many seem to be talking about SEO but only a few actually know what it is and how it works.  There is no shortcut to becoming very efficient with the skill, but constant learning, re-learning and the ultimate which is putting your learning into action.

So for the first timers, SEO is simply the different means used to increase a website's position on search engine results pages using strategies that include keywords research and link building. It is better to hire an SEO person or agency to do this because it requires some pretty niche skills, but it is possible to do your own search engine optimization.

Here are just a couple of steps to take when trying to do SEO on your own.

 Do Some Keyword Research

The importance of keywords in SEO cannot be overemphasized. This is because these are the terms potential clients type into the search bar of Google (most Nigerians), Bing and Yahoo. You might think you know which keywords people are using. Although there can be some logic to guessing the keywords they’ll use, there are other terms that are less obvious but very effective. To find these keywords, you need to do some research.

Services like Google analytics and Google search console are two free but wonderful tools that can be used to help identify the keywords that people are entering to get on your site. Other services that you can use include Keyword Tool, Moz Keyword Explorer, SEMrush, Google Adwords, Spyfu etc.,

Another perk of a good keyword research is that it helps you identify which keywords are useful and which aren’t. Making sure that you only optimize for the keywords that are relevant to your business and not completely unrelated terms. You should also be aware of different types of keywords such as long tail keywords.

Incorporate These Keywords On Your Site

Once you’ve completed your keyword research and have your best keywords, you can start incorporating these into the key areas of your website. Areas like the page title, different headers and most importantly in the content on each page. This is one of the surest ways to boost rankings.

Try incorporating the keyword naturally to avoid what is known in the SEO world as Keyword Stuffing. It is the term giving for the misuse of keywords. Apart from how it affects the readability of your website and put off visitors, this black-hat SEO strategy could have a negative effect on your search rankings.

Use Backlinking

Another way of improving your rankings is through the use of backlinks. It involves the use of hyperlinks to direct traffic to your site from another site. In the case of SEO, you want other websites to be linking to yours in order to help boost your website’s rankings. The idea revolves around trying to make your website (especially new ones) more visible to search engines.

For a backlink to be successful, the use of the right anchor text is very important. Knowing the best anchor text to use depends on several factors, but ideally, you should be using a mix of keywords and more generic links.

Getting backlink might not be easy, but you can contact other website owners and ask if you can contribute a blog post which contains your backlink somewhere within the text. Don’t be spammy when it comes to backlinks – you only need to use one per text.

Because hyperlinking is all about sharing, you should also consider linking a few other companies on your own website. These should be companies that aren’t your competitors but could be useful related services. This will similarly boost your search rankings.

Use Internal Linking

Apart from trying to get other websites to link back to your website, it is also good to do some internal linking. These are hyperlinks that link to another page on the same website. You can similarly use keywords when internal linking to help boost your rankings. As with all the above SEO tricks, keep internal linking natural. It’s good to have a mix of internal and external links – search engines generally don’t like internal link hogs and could negatively rank you for doing this.

Share Your Website’s Content On Social Media

Sharing links to your website on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can help to boost your website’s ranking by giving you more web presence. It becomes even more effective when other people start interacting and sharing your content.

You don’t want to be continuously posting the same link to your social media channels – ideally, you should be constantly linking new content. These could be new blog posts that you’ve written or links to new product pages on your website.

Encourage Other People To Promote Your Website

Another SEO strategy that can help boost your rankings is to get other people to share your website on the internet. This could be other companies linking your website as a cross-promotional tactic. It could also include news articles and reviews from online publications. This might include sending off some press releases to companies around the web. You could hire a PR company to do this, or similarly do it yourself.

Produce High-Quality Content

That Content Is King cannot be overemphasized. No matter how well you follow all the tips above, if your content is poor, your ranking will suffer.

Make sure every page on your site is there for a unique purpose and solves a problem. Ask yourself, what are my customers looking for? How can I go beyond their expectations? Answering these two questions correctly will help you produce the right content that suits your target audience.

Your page should provide useful information and resources that users will benefit from.

Try this few tips and let us know how well it worked for you.