If you have a website, chances are you'll have heard of the term SEO. So just what is SEO and why is it important?

What is SEO?

SEO means 'Search Engine Optimisation' and it refers to tools and techniques that can be used to increase your site's visibility in search engine results. Search engines provide results for a search query that has been entered and basically, you want your site to appear high up in the search results so that the user is more likely to click through to your site. Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of websites out there, you won't necessarily appear on the first few pages of a Google search, but there are however, ways to increase your chances of this. And that's where SEO comes in!

Where to start?
Now that you have a better understanding of its importance, you'll now be wondering how to do SEO. Here are a few ways that you can optimise your site for SEO. 

-Perform an SEO audit

This is something you can have done by a professional SEO company or you may prefer to conduct one yourself once you learn a little more about the processes required. An SEO audit includes an analysis into the health of your website and will look at factors that may be holding it back from ranking well in search engine results.  

-Create great content

You need to be ensuring that you're creating high quality content that will encourage readers to stay on your site. If you have a website, consider creating a blog as part of it. This will ensure you are producing relevant and up to date content that your readers will enjoy. In time you will be seen as a trusted resource on the topics you write about. 

-Keywords

Using keywords can be the key to getting your posts seen. Keywords are popular words of combinations of words that an individual might type into a search engine. Researching keywords using an online tool can certainly have advantages for your site. Try to include your keywords in the title tag, headers and body, the URL and the meta description. It's important to make sure that your keywords look natural, so be mindful not to just drop them into every sentence which will make the text seem clunky and forced. 

-Include image alt text

Search engines will look for images with alt text so it is worth inputting alt text with all your images. The alt text tells the search engine what the image is displaying. This can help them rank in the search engine's image results page too. 

-Include internal links

It's great to have other websites linking to your site but also include internal links to your own site in your articles. This helps Google to see you as an authority and also keeps people on your site You can also link to other high authority sites. 

SEO doesn't need to be complicated. Start small by using these tips and you'll soon start seeing results. 

*Collaborative post