SEO

Prepared by
Derar Barqawi
IT & Digital Marketing Manager
Almond Solutions
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of
traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
How Google Search Works?
Google follows three basic steps to generate results from web pages:

Crawling: Is the process of finding out what pages exist on the web.

Indexing: Is the process of understanding what the page is about.

Serving (and ranking): Is the process of finding out the most relevant results from Google index based
on many factors.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more
relevant traffic in search engines - On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page
that can be optimized.

On-page SEO Elements

Start Title Tag with Your Keyword

Your title tag is the most important on-page SEO factor.

The closer the keyword is to the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it has with search engines.

Note: If you target a specific country, you can use the country name in the title tag (Localization)
On-Page SEO
Add Modifiers to Your Title

Adding modifiers like “2020”, “best”, “guide”, and “review” help you rank for long tail versions of your target
keyword.

Wrap Your Title in an <h1> Tag

It’s better to use this tag, but it’s not critical.

Meta Tags

Include your target keyword in meta description - meta keywords is ignored by Google.

Use SEO-Friendly URLs

Avoid ugly URLs: almondsolutions.com/23-11-20/pagetitle

Make your page’s URL short and keyword rich: almondsolutions.com/your-keyword
On-Page SEO
Use Multimedia

Using images, videos and diagrams can reduce bounce rate and increase time on site.

Wrap Subheadings in H2 Tags

Include your target keyword in at least one subheading, and wrap it in an H2 tag.

Drop Your Keyword in the First 100 Words

Your keyword should appear in the first 100 words of the page’s content.

Responsive Design

Google started penalizing mobile unfriendly sites in 2015.

On-Page SEO
Use Outbound Links (in your blog)

Outbound links to related pages is a relevancy signal that helps Google figure out your page’s topic - A
recent study found that pages with outbound links outrank pages without outbound links.

Internal Links

You can build internal links from the blog. Here, you can link back to your products/services pages.

Boost Site Speed

Google stated that page’s speed used as a ranking signal. A study found that 75% of users wouldn’t
re-visit a site that took longer than 4 seconds to load. You can boost your site speed by using a CDN,
compressing images, and switching to faster hosting - CDN is short for content delivery network. A content delivery network
(CDN) is a system of distributed servers (network) that deliver pages and other web content to a user, based on the geographic locations of the user,
the origin of the webpage and the content delivery server.)
On-Page SEO
Use LSI Keywords

Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a system search engines use to analyze the other words people use
surrounding a given topic. LSI keywords are words and phrases with a high degree of correlation to your
target topic. Google's algorithm uses them to help determine content quality and relevance to the search
term.

Image Optimization

Make sure image file names include your target keyword, and that your target keyword is part of your
image Alt text.

Use Social Sharing Buttons

Social signals may not play a direct role in ranking your site. But social shares generate more eyeballs on
your content. And the more eyeballs you get, the more likely someone is to link.
On-Page SEO
Post Long Content (words count: 2000)

Length is strength! And Google love text.

301 Redirect

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link equity (ranking power) to the
redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301
redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.

404 Error

A 404 error is an HTTP status code that means that the page you were trying to reach on a website
couldn't be found on their server.
On-Page SEO
Sitemap

The Sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are
available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site.

Robots.txt

Your robots.txt file, located in your root folder, is a way for webmasters to indicate which
pages/folders/directories should not be accessed by crawlers or search engines.

SSL Certificate

An SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer), also called a Digital Certificate, creates a secure link between
a website and a visitor's browser. By ensuring that all data passed between the two remains private and
secure, SSL encryption prevents hackers from stealing private information such as credit card numbers,
names and addresses.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to actions taken outside of your own website to impact your rankings within search
engine results pages (SERPs)

Off-page SEO Elements

Creating Shareable Content

Amazing content is always the KING in search engine optimization. Creating amazing and shareable
content is a smart way to generating more and more natural backlinks to our website or blog. Research
often and keep your content always fresh and updated.

Influencer Outreach

If you have created any kind of content which is share worthy, then don’t hesitate to reach out influencers
in your industry. Tell them to check your blog and ask for link backs from their blog. Make sure you get the
links from completely relevant domains.
Off-Page SEO
Contribute as Guest Author

There are a number of good and quality blogs that are open for guest post from various authors. Write an
amazing research piece and reach them with the content for guest post. Don’t focus on quantity of links
but rather focus only on quality links. Also don’t keep posting multiple times on the same guest blog site.

Social Media Engagement

A major Off-page SEO technique is social media engagement. If you want to make your business, website
or blog popular, engage with people on multiple social media platforms. Social media presence will help
grow your business and also help you get more backlinks.
Off-Page SEO
Top social networking sites

● www.twitter.com
● www.linkedin.com
● www.facebook.com
● www.instagram.com

Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking sites are one of the best platforms to promote your website. When you bookmark your
webpage or blog post on popular social bookmarking websites, you gain high traffic to your webpage or
blog.
Off-Page SEO
Popular and high PR Bookmarking Websites

● https://www.reddit.com
● https://digg.com
● https://slashdot.org
● https://diigo.com

Forum Submission

Participate in search forums which are related to your website and business and make a connection with
that community. Reply to threads, answer people’s questions and give your suggestions and advice. Make
use of “Do-Follow” forums.
Off-Page SEO
List of high PR forums

● https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/
● https://www.addthis.com/forum
● https://bbpress.org/forums/
● https://www.careerbuilder.com
● https://www.chronicle.com/forums

Blog Directory Submission

Directory Submission is constantly working to build quality back links. Choose an effective directory and
select a proper category. It takes quite some time to deliver good results, but these results stand out over
a longer time period.
Off-Page SEO
Free directory submission list

● https://www.boingboing.net
● http://technorati.com
● https://www.blogadda.com
● https://www.elecdir.com
● http://www.a1webdirectory.org

Article Submission

Submit your articles in a high PR article submission directory. You can also give links to your website.
Make sure your content is unique and of high quality. Low quality content and content that has more
keyword stuffing might get rejected. Choose the correct category and give a good title to your content.
Off-Page SEO
Free Article Submission sites

● https://www.thefreelibrary.com
● http://www.magportal.com
● https://ezinearticles.com
● https://hubpages.com
● https://www.brighthub.com

https://echovme.in/blog/off-page-seo-strategies/