The Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key aspect to consider when developing a website for any topic. However, some webmasters get obsessed with finding the perfect keywords, forgetting to consider User Experience (UX) along the way. When developing an SEO strategy for your website, always be sure to consider the user's experience too. After all, we are aiming for human visitors more than search engine robots, right?

For those who are new to the world of Search Engine Optimization, here's a little background. SEO is the process of enhancing a website in a way that will help search engines index your website and place it high in the search results. Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into a search engine. If your website includes the same words the user is searching for, your website could be found in the search results.

But it's not that easy. Keywords can be tough to rank for, and your content must be related to those keywords. Filling your website with a popular keyword will do nothing — in fact, search engines may devalue your website for this practice.

Consider User Experience in Your SEO Strategy

While SEO is very important, the User Experience can be just as important. While UX does not necessarily help the SEO of your website directly, it does keep the audience happy and hopefully keeps them coming back.

The User Experience is the culmination of all the details of your website that users will see or interact with during their visit. This includes content that is easy to read, navigation that makes sense, menus that are easy to use, and pleasing visuals that relate to the topics on the website.

The most important thing to remember: **While Search Engine Optimization is essential for search engines to find and promote your website, they highly consider the User Experience in their rankings too.** You need to make sure your website is well designed for both Google and for people.

Best Practices for Search Engine Optimization

Use Relevant Keywords Throughout the Site

Keywords are the backbone of SEO. Without keywords, you won't rank for anything in the search results. Generally speaking, the best number of keywords and keyword density to use is "enough" — natural and contextually appropriate.

Do Not Perform Keyword Stuffing

You want to avoid "keyword stuffing" where you just fill a page with the keyword. Search engines see this and devalue a website for pointlessly filling pages with the same words over and over. This also hurts UX since visitors can barely read content full of nonsense keyword phrases.

Add Relevant Visuals and Media

Visuals and media are huge for any website that wants to pull in and keep visitors. People want their information in simple, visually appealing format. An infographic, a photo, or a few designs can be the difference between a visitor staying or leaving your website.

Remember Background SEO

Search engines cannot read text that appears on an image, but there are background hints that can be used to tell the search engine what your image is about. Try giving the image a keyword-optimized file name, or adding your keyword to the alt text. This also works with video and audio files.

Create an Orderly Website

Keep things simple. Make sure to have the main menu and sometimes one extra side menu or footer menu. Create high-level categories rather than offering a dozen options. Decide on what content is the most important and place it front and center. Most importantly, be consistent from page to page.

Format Links Properly

Use your keyword as the anchor text whenever you can. Stay away from "click here" style wording. A few links to your main content and maybe an additional appearance in the sidebar or footer is good practice.

The Takeaway

**SEO is UX for the search engines, and UX is SEO for the people.** Try these tactics on your own website and see how you do. Always remember to serve both the search engines as well as the visitors they bring.