SEO Tactics Made Simple; Crawling, Indexing and Ranking.

When I began to write content for the web, I feared that my articles will get lost amid different contents scattered all over the internet. I was not sure if my work will be seen by anyone, however, I got to understand the two major SEO tactics which I will be sharing with you as you read along. Previously, I have hinted you on how to create a winning content; now we need to talk about more technical issues, like the use of relevant keywords and understanding the concept of crawling, indexing, and ranking by search engines; these two tactics aid the process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of your website traffic, by improving the visibility of a website or pages for users of a web search engine. For proper SEO to take place, you must come to terms with the use of keywords, get to know what keywords your audience is searching for through the use of keywords planner. Having said that, content shouldn’t just be created based on your mood or what comes to your mind, but must be researched and written based on the needs of users; you need to stay relevant.

 

The Concept of Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking

Crawling

Search engines use a software programming tool to access all content on websites and their pages. At this stage, it fetches all links (inbound and outbound) within pages and arranges them in groups based on how related they are to each other. In order to get your site’s pages crawled, it is important to have a high page rank along with other qualifications to increase your chances of getting crawled. Page rank is a search algorithm that uses value points to evaluate the quality of websites as regards backlinks and SEO. Be reminded that if your page isn’t crawled, it won’t be indexed and can’t get a shot at being ranked.

Indexing

When a user searches for a keyword, in seconds, the search engine delivers a comprehensive list of results related to the search from various websites that have previously been crawled. The search engine presents all the sorted and stored information in a manner that lets the user get the content they seek, with ease. Search engines like Google make use of several algorithms to ensure their presentation of accurate results. They also take note of the number of times a page contains a keyword, synonyms or related words, the quality of the website in terms of load time, responsiveness and more are also considered.

Ranking

This is what most people are familiar with. As we all aspire to rank high and be on the first page of search results. It is important to know that ranking high isn’t a destination but a process and product of relevant, quality and consistent content. A particular keyword is capable of producing thousands of results which is displayed on several pages. To rank, your Search Engine Optimization (SEO tactics) must be well implemented in the sense that keywords must be well-positioned within specific areas like the title, meta-description, URL, snippet section, alt text, featured images and within the body of your text. The length of your content is also very important- long contents have better chances of ranking higher than short text.

As a content developer, your articles must be written to satisfy both humans and search engines else your content marketing effort will be futile. To reiterate most of what has been discussed, Ahrefs Blog, states that your SEO tactics should involve, audience and keyword research, creating relevant and consistent content, optimizing pages for target keywords, building backlinks, regularly reworking old posts to keep them fresh and up-to-date.