Learn the basics of SEO in 250 words
Am I up for the challenge?
Let’s see how this goes. My word count begins now! (Emojis don’t count 😜)
SEO: Search Engine Optimization AKA becoming Google’s ✨favorite website ever✨
Someone just searched “church in madison wi.”
Google springs into action and finds the best websites to display, based on the following:
Keywords 🔍: “Are the words church, madison, and wisconsin found on this site? Do they show up in headings, titles, descriptions, even image file names? If it’s really a church in madison wi, I would expect to see all of that.”
Content is king 👑: “Would my searcher find the content on this site useful or interesting?”
External linking 🔗: “When other sites are talking about churches in Madison, do they link to this one? Wow, that must mean other people really like it.”
Session duration ⏲️: “Are people spending time on this site? If the session duration is low, that must mean no one wants to stick around. Yikes, that’s a red flag.”
User experience 😍: “Is it ugly? Hm… I know my searchers are sophisticated people and they might not like that.”
Walls of text vs. skimmable formatting 👀: “Does reading a page make my eyes hurt? Or, are there lots of line breaks, lists, images, and bullets to break up each page?”
Calls to action 💥: “Does each page have an obvious next step? Hopefully there’s a button that makes that clear.”
Speed 🏃♂️: “I better send people to a site that actually loads. Attention spans these days…”
Mobile friendliness 📱: “Are page elements too small to see on a phone? Or was it built with mobile in mind?”
That’s all! Google then chooses and ranks the best options to display for the search. Would you rank high?
Little improvements make a big difference!
Oh, and in case you were curious…
Woohoo!
