SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of getting your content found in an online search. When someone performs an online search, the word or phrase they search for is called a keyword, or keyword phrase. Your goal is to make your content appear as high as possible on the results page and convince them to click on your link.

When you mention SEO to many people, it tends to conjure up an air of mystery. Nobody, not even employees at Google, know the search algorithm in full, and it seems you need a PhD in statistics to be able to understand the small parts of the algorithms that Google does share with us.

Then we see marketing campaigns talking about the “Secrets of SEO”, and “We’ll tell you the answers, ‘cause we’re the only ones that know! Pay us lots of money and we’ll do the secret SEO stuff for you!”

Conflicting information about SEO is everywhere. Some SEO experts say keywords are the way to go, others say don’t worry about keywords. Some tell you to post blogs daily for fresh content, others say quality is far better than quantity. And much of this advice is written by self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who really don’t have a clue about how SEO works, adding to the confusion and misinformation.

It’s no wonder there is so much mystery surrounding SEO! It’s important to focus on the basics and remember a few simple elements that will get your SEO off to a good start:

• Do thorough keyword research and choose words that have a decent amount of monthly searches, but don’t have too much competition
• Have your keywords in your URL, your heading tags, meta description the first 100 words of your copy and as the alt text for your images
• Create an enticing title to show up in the results page
• Write a brief but detailed meta-description with a summary of what your page is about with a call to action at the end

Start with the basics and the rest will happen naturally. If you’re creating valuable content that people read, enjoy and share, then you’ll get more traffic and a higher ranking website without having to worry about an “SEO strategy” at all.

If you are interested in setting up the SEO on your website, check out our free eBook The Ultimate Beginners Guide to SEO.