SEO – Basic Principles and Recommendations

August 16th, 2019

In this post we will outline the key stages of the SEO process. And we will bake a cake.

SEO is much like cake baking

The whole process of search engine optimization is made up of specific steps that go in a particular order.

To better illustrate how SEO works, we can compare it to the process of baking a cake. First, you will need a recipe for your cake or the whole attempt might very well turn into a disaster. Next, you’ll need to find the right ingredients; only then you can start with the baking itself and complete your masterpiece with some decorating. In the end, all that’s left is to hope your cake will be delicious and so irresistible that people will keep coming back for more.

Recipe

You can certainly try to bake your cake without a recipe. However, unless you’re already a skilled baker, it’s quite unlikely that the cake will turn out exactly as you had hoped.

The same goes for SEO. It’s better to come up with a plan first and, ideally, stick to it all the way through. As we explained in the previous article, SEO is not just a one-time action and it will require your time and dedication. If you have a plan and you see where it’s all going, the whole process will be much easier.

To get your SEO recipe just right, you need to define your target audience. Analyze what kind of visitors you have at the moment or are hoping to have in the future. You also need to know your competitors. Then you can pay attention to the actual content on your website and decide what you should put there to fulfill the needs of your target audience.

We will focus on identifying your target audience, competitors and more in the next article of our series.

Ingredients

You can’t make your cake pop out of thin air. You’re going to need a few ingredients.

Search engines judge individual websites according to specific technical criteria. Fast-loading pages, HTTPS, responsive design, clear URL structure, relevant titles and meta descriptions and unique content are just the very basic elements of SEO and your website should include all of them.

With Webnode, you don’t have to worry about the application of the more technical of these elements (such as the HTTPS or responsive design). Our editor was designed to take care of a lot of these advanced functions for you.

However, you’ll find a few details that will certainly need your attention. Which leads us to the next step.

Baking

So you found a good recipe, mixed all the right ingredients and put the cake in the oven. It’s time to turn the temperature up a notch.

In other words, if you have set everything on your website to make your visitors happy, work on its promotion. You need to let the world know that your website is online and full of high-quality content. Build your brand and attract a bigger audience. While you’re at it, encourage those visitors to share your website with some friends.

How exactly can you promote your website? Get other trustworthy websites to share your content, be active on social media or cooperate with Google. Promotion is such a decisive factor that we decided to dedicate not one but three separate articles to this topic. Stay with us and we will give you some interesting tips.

The icing on your cake

Your cake is ready and you could start selling it as it is, but add a little bit of icing and you’ll get much better results.

When it comes to SEO, the icing on the cake is the analysis of your work. You can use various tools to evaluate your statistics and tune up your website if necessary. It’s essential to know if the chosen SEO approach has brought in the desired results.

What’s next?

Now that you know about the individual phases of SEO, we can take a closer look at the most important topics. Here’s a handy overview of the upcoming articles:

  1. Introduction
  2. Basic principles and recommendations
  3. Where to begin? (content, target group, competitors, own domain)
  4. SEO settings in the Webnode website builder
  5. Links on your website
  6. Submitting your site to search engines
  7. SEO and social media
  8. Data Analysis (study your visitors)
  9. Mobile first indexing

Make sure to read this step-by-step SEO guide.

What about you? Have you found the right recipe and ingredients for your SEO? Let us know how you’re doing in the comments below.