How to S.E.O: 4-steps to increase your website’s visibility.
S.E.O or Search Engine Optimization is a skill everybody should know. And it’s not about keyword
From the start, I knew I needed a website if I wanted to publish a novel. Most authors have one, and it’s a great way to promote your book. A well-made author website—or "landing page"—can make a big difference in how people discover, engage with, and buy your book. What I didn’t know was how to actually build a website, let alone optimize it to attract more visitors.
By chance, while watching YouTube videos on creating an author site, I came across an ad for the Google Career Certificate program. On the spot, I decided to enroll in the Digital Marketing and E-Commerce course. That program opened my eyes to the world of marketing, especially social media strategies and search engine optimization (SEO).
I had heard of SEO before when I briefly tried making YouTube videos, but this time, I dove in headfirst. I learned how search engines work and what it takes to make a website show up in search results.
In this blog, I’ll share some key steps to optimizing your site—things I learned from the digital marketing course. This isn’t a full guide, but if you’re serious about learning, I highly recommend taking the program. I took it simply because I wanted to grow my skills.
So, let’s break down the essential steps to making your website more search-friendly:
Do Pre-Work
Keyword Research
Create Useful and Valuable Content
Make the Site Simple and Easy to Use
S.E.O - Search Engine Optimization
It may sound like a daunting process, but it’s actually quite easy! If you take your time, do it step-by-step, you’ll create a highly engaging and highly visible website!
1.Pre-Work.
What is ‘pre-work’? Think of this step as the planning stage before building a website. You first start off by asking yourself these questions:
What is the goal of the website (business or personal)? What specific niche will this site be in?
What would I like to achieve with this website? (Awareness? Sales?)
Who is my target audience/customer? (Or an another way, which group of people I want to connect with?)
By answering these questions, you narrow down the overall purpose of your website. This way, you can craft/tailor the site to your specific target audience, appealing to their needs. What is it your product or service does to relieve your target audience’s “pains”. Is your site simply a blog which you write to provide useful tips on how to write a book? Or is it a business site selling courses on how to build generate a massive social media following (I’ve seen those all over Twitter nowadays).
Think of it this way; a business who’s goal is to sell life insurance wouldn’t create a website that caters to kids (or a website that looks like it’s made by kids). No, they want a professional looking website; one that screams ‘lifestyle’. You know, those sites filled with pictures with happy seniors and their grandkids. The site oozes the theme "‘peace of mind’ and ‘security’.
By specifying your goals along with who you customer is, you know exactly which path to take when it comes to crafting your site. You’ll create useful content for that particular demographic that is aligned towards your business’ purpose.
2. Keyword research.
This is probably the easy bit of the SEO process. There are tools like Google Trends where you can put in words, and find out which of those terms or phrases have the highest search results. Those words become your ‘keywords’. Another way is to simple go onto Google and type in a word and see what pre-filled results show up first. If you’re unsure what terms to use, take a look at other websites (your competitors) and look at their content.
What words are they using that relates to their product? Any words that seem to repeat? Synonyms? Is their content tailored to their product/service? Take a good look and jot any words you think will fit your business.
Big caveat here: DO NOT ‘keyword stuff’ your site! What does ‘keyword stuffing’ mean? It means to use the same set of words or synonyms and putting them in and around the content of your site. Or more blatantly putting the exact same words in a paragraph so that the site can show up on search engines.
Make it stand out
DON’T DO THIS PLEASE!
Simplest and easiest way to make sure you don’t keyword stuff, is to adopt a different mindset and think: what can I write that can address the customer’s needs? This leads us to our next point.
3. Create useful and valuable content.
Instead of writing content that revolves around keywords - write topics that revolves around the target audience instead. What is it are you trying to do, to help your customer’s ‘pain points’. What are they experiencing, and how can you or your product/service help them? Develop the content thoroughly by having an empathetic mindset. Put yourself in their shoes and ask what business would you like to see that could help you with your problem. Focus on crafting those answers around your target audiences’ questions and make sure the content addresses their needs.
So, the content has to be well-written, informative and on topic or aligned with your goals. Whatever you’re selling, the writing has to be compelling, engaging, and valuable enough, that your audience would feel a connection to your business. If properly done, your customers might even share your site! Great content follows a few necessary steps:
It’s well-written
Easy to follow
Fresh and unique
Obviously, don’t plagiarize and don’t rehash other site’s content. Google has tools to detect if the content is being duplicated (I have not seen this in action, but was informed about it). So, basically know what the audience wants and give it to them! Make the customer feel connected to your writing and cultivate that sense of trust, so that they can keep coming back to you site (and hopefully buy more from you).
4. Make your website user friendly.
If you take a look at any business website, you’ll find that they’re really easy to use and intuitive. They have readable pages, easy to spot navigational links, and offer “breadcrumbs” which is a trail of links that guide visitors back to a larger, category page. Essentially, these sites keeps things simple and streamlined, so that the customer can freely and easily move around the site without any resistance. Here are some tips:
Create a navigation bar/page.
Keep URL’s simple, short and descriptive.
Don’t stuff your page! (Simple and concise for speed).
The navigation bar is pretty straightforward. You’ve seen it on countless websites—it’s the top section with links to different pages, like products or services. Its main purpose is to help visitors move through your site easily so they don’t get lost or frustrated. This is why clear page titles and descriptive URLs are so important—they make sure users land exactly where they expect to.
For example, you wouldn’t name a link “Books” if it actually leads to a page selling magazines—or worse, shoes. Your links and URLs should always match the content on that page. Also, make sure each page title is unique. If multiple pages have similar names, it can confuse visitors and cause them to leave your site.
One last tip: don’t overload your pages with unnecessary extras. Not everyone has fast internet, and too many high-resolution images, videos, or other heavy elements can slow things down. Visitors want a site that loads quickly and gets them where they need to go with minimal hassle. The less friction between pages, the better their experience. So, focus on efficiency and optimize for speed.
Well, that’s it! Thank you for reading the blog post. I hope this helps you on your journey to crafting your website! You can refer to Google’s Guide to SEO HERE and follow their step-by-step process. Good luck and take care!
