SEO for beginners: most common SEO FAQs

What is SEO? And how does SEO work?

Let’s start at the beginning. SEO stands for search engine optimisation, the process of ensuring your website appears on SERPs (search engine results pages) when users search for relevant keywords or queries. As your rankings improve, so too does your organic traffic. This is traffic which comes from searches rather than paid advertising or social media.

In order to appear on SERPs, these are the things you will need to concentrate on;

– Make sure search engines know who you are, and what you are offering to users. – Make your content easy to access for both users and crawlers – Create great content which is relevant to your service and with credible answers

Do I need SEO?

Short answer, yes. It is very rare to find a company which won’t need or at least benefit from some form of SEO. Organic Search is responsible for 53% of all site traffic, so not trying to gain some of this organic traffic means it all goes to your competitors. It also means users have a much harder time finding your site unless they know the exact web address, something that is getting harder everyday as more domains are added online.

With no focus on SEO, you will find yourself ranking lowly on Google with very small levels of organic traffic. PPC advertising is a way or outranking the top results on search engines, however these cost per click from a user and is therefore not a sustainable long-term strategy without any work on SEO.

How do I choose the best keywords?

We won’t delve too much into this area as we recently covered this topic in full in our blog; tips and tricks for easy keyword research. But, we will summarise and give our top 3 tips for identifying keywords:

1. Review user generated content for queries users have and phrases they use 2. Conduct competitor analysis – if your competitors are gaining traffic from a term, it may be relevant to you too 3. Make use of AI tools like Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends.

Why am I not ranking on Google? Why is my site not indexed on Google?

A quick brand search on Google will often tell you if your site is indexed and if your content can appear in search results. If it isn’t, don’t panic. There are various reasons your site could not be indexed, and most are easy to fix or just take time to stabilise.

Possible reasons why your website pages aren’t ranking:

– Your site is relatively new. It takes time to build up authority of your pages, so you probably won’t be appearing top of search results overnight, or sometimes even in the first year. – Your content doesn’t match the searcher’s intent. For example, ‘SEO help’ is a vague term. Is the intent to find an SEO agency, or just some SEO tips and tricks? Pay careful attention to what terms you target. – Your content lacks analysis and relevancy. Your content should provide more insight and more evaluation and information than those already ranking highly.

If all or many your pages aren’t indexed, it could be for one of these reasons:

– Pages are being blocked from being indexed by wither your robots.txt file or via no index tags. Resolve these, an your site should be indexed in time. – Your site has a penalty for violating Google’s webmaster guidelines. This is very rare.

Why has my organic traffic dropped?

There are countless reasons for traffic dropping, however we all want to know why when we can. Firstly, you need to identify whether traffic has dropped suddenly or if it has been dropping gradually over time.

A sudden drop in traffic

This is often due to a development error and can range from search appearance settings being changed unknowingly, to changes causing tracking to stop working altogether. Your first task is to find out whether your traffic has really dropped, or whether it is a tracking error. Compare data on different platforms like Ahrefs, SEMRush, Analytics and Search Console. If all the data is showing a drop, then it is likely an indexing issue which can be fixed easily. If analytics is showing a drop in traffic but the others are showing steady data, there is likely an error with the analytics tracking code or cookies.

A gradual drop in traffic

A sudden drop in traffic often signals an error, however a gradual drop can be a lot harder to identify and combat. One possible cause could be a new Google algorithm update. These are released constantly and make small and big changes to ranking factors. For example, recent updates have shaken up the SEO world with a bigger focus on core web vitals and helpful content. Overall, the updates are aimed at providing the best answers to user’s queries, so if you concentrate on creating great content you should be covered here from large changes.

Another likely reason is your competitors implementing a new SEO strategy. While you are trying to improve your rankings, so are your competitors. You need to prove to Google you provide more valuable content for those users and deserve to rank above them. Competitor analysis can be used to identify any new keywords and queries they are using, and you can then target these to gain traffic.

How long does it take for content to rank?

How long is a piece of string? Same answer – it depends. There is no definitive answer as to when a search engine will crawl and rank your site. Not only that, but for new content you need to give it time to build authority and preferably backlinks before you will see it ranking top of SERPs.

You may find it easier and quicker to rank for specific keywords and queries like location-based services, however for more general terms ranking can take up to or even over a year.

Our best advice is to expect fluctuations in rankings and implement improvements when you see a continued drop in traffic. You can also submit pages for indexing via Google’s Search Console. Doing this lets Google know you have made changes and the page needs re-crawling. This would happen eventually anyway but can speed the process along slightly.

Should we use SEO or PPC ads, or both?

In an ideal world, every business would balance their marketing channels so they are not too reliant on any one. If you neglect one or the other, you could be losing out on vital traffic and conversions. SEO without PPC means competitors with ads will appear above your listings on SERPs. PPC without SEO means every click costs, and every conversion has a cost associated to gain that user. So, use both if possible. Start with SEO and organic search, then focus on PPC.

What are Google’s most important ranking factors?

Google and other search engines rank pages based on a complicated algorithm designed to show the most relevant results for a query. The following is a list of just a few of the ranking factors in order of priority. It’s important to note that it is a combination of these factors, and many others, that determine your overall ranking for each individual query. Plus, these are constantly adapting and being updated so search engines can present better results to their users. Keep an eye out for algorithm update newson our marketing insightspage.

– Direct website visits – Time on site – Pages per session – Bounce rate – Referring domains – Number of backlinks – Referring Ips – Number of follow-backlinks – Content length – Website security (HTTPS) – Anchor links – Keywords in anchor links – Keywords in body – Keyword density – Keyword in title – Keyword in meta-data – Video on page

What is the difference between on-page SEO and technical SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimising content which appears on the front-end of your website, information your customers and users have access to. This includes copy, title tags, meta-data, internal links, external links, alt tags and even image optimisation.

Technical SEO is more focused on how your site runs and the background code which tells crawlers how to use your site. For example, this covers areas like site speed (core web vitals), structured data, canonical links, sitemaps, Hreflang tags and more.

Off-page SEO is the third area of SEO. This revolves around content creation, social media presence, podcasts, reviews and even link-building. External actions which can all help or hinder your rankings.

How does page speed affect ranking?

Since Google’s 2021 update, page speed and core web vitals have been key to ranking positions. Not only did they demand good content, but a well-designed and functioning site. As a customer this is a great thing. Who wants to find they answer they want, only to find the site loads slowly and is hard to navigate?

If you are concerned about your page speed, it may be time to invest in some improvements. Factors such as how long it takes for the biggest content area to load and how much movement there is on page determine your core web vitals.

Do you have a video on the homepage banner? While this can look appealing, it is often a drain on page speed. Reducing the file size, choosing a new video platform, or even removing the video can be simple ways to improve your page speeds. Before making any changes, be sure to review whether your video or other content is helping conversions or contacts. If removing a video would drop conversions, investing in the right software to compress and host your file would be the best course of action.

Check your page speeds using Google’s Page Speed Insightsor another similar tool. Use these tools to evaluate key pages, and then compare those scores with those of your competitors.

How do we identify technical SEO errors?

While it is possible to manually review each page of content and look for errors, this would be an extremely timely process and leaves it open for things to be missed. The easiest way to quickly and efficiently identify technical SEO issues is to use a purpose-built software like SEMRush, ahrefs, Screaming Frogor any other tool you choose which offers a site audit function.

These will crawl your whole site and identify errors like broken links, orphan pages, hreflang errors, missing meta-data and more. It even tells you which URL the error is on and can often give advice on how to fix the problem. Reviewing and actioning fixes for these errors improves your overall site health and rankings.

Does duplicate content affect rankings?

Yes, in some cases when not handled correctly. The general rule of thumb is to not copy full blocks of text or meta-data from other pages or sites, as crawlers and search engines highlight this as duplicate content. This can then hinder your rankings. Site Audit tools will be able to pinpoint any duplicate content on your site, which you can then tackle.

In some cases, duplicate content can be necessary. Those with large product databases of similar products like TVs, for example, can often have almost identical descriptions and specs with only one detail that changes. When this occurs, implementing canonical links within the code of your pages helps identify the most important page so Google knows which to rank.

How long should a page of content be?

There is no definitive answer to this question. Ultimately, it should be as long as it takes to cover the topic in detail. Content relevancy has become one of the key ranking factors on Google, so ensuring your content is well-written, well-researched and relevant to the topic are more important than the length.

If you are still after a word count to aim for, we’d try to reach at least 1,000 words of copy. But, as we said it’s more important to have detailed and relevant answers.

What is link-building?

Link-building is when sites actively seek new backlinks from other domains. Since backlinks are a key ranking factor, this is a great way to improve the trust score of your site and improve overall rankings. Each backlink acts like a vote of confidence from another website. The websites link to you, the more trusted as an authority you are.

It’s also important to consider the quality of a backlink. The more trusted the site the backlink comes from, the more valuable the link. Concentrate on gaining backlinks from websites related to your own, who cover topics in a similar content area.

How can I gain more backlinks?

There are countless strategies that businesses use to gain backlinks, and content marketers are finding new ways every day. Here are some the best tactics we have seen for link-building:

– Guest blogging – Digital PR – Supplier links – Broken link building – Unlinked brand mentions – Skyscraper blogging

For more link-building advice, get in touch with our SEO specialists!

Can I buy backlinks?

You can, but you definitely shouldn’t. Google and other search engines heavily penalise sites who purchase backlinks, and their ability to identify these types of links are getting better with each update. Not only this, but it’s not just the number of backlinks that matters to ranking. Just as important is the quality of these backlinks, and some can even be harmful to your rankings. So, don’t buy backlinks!

Does social media help increase my rankings?

Posting on social media does not directly affect your rankings on search engines, however it does raise your brand profile. The more people know your brand, the more who will search for your brand and ultimately visit your site. As more users visit your site, your rankings improve. So, while each post isn’t necessarily going to push up your rankings, sharing your brand, service and product names can help people know what keywords to search for to find your products.

Do I need to hire someone for SEO?

Not necessarily, but like any profession it’s best to get expert advice. One option is to hire or train up an SEO specialist if you don’t have one already. The other is to partner with an SEO marketing agencywith suitable expertise. Get in touch with Next Chapterand our SEO specialists can share their expert advice, helping you achieve your SEO goals and improve your rankings.

Take a look at our range of marketing expertiseand see if we can help with your next campaign, whether it’s SEO or setting up PPC ads.