SEO is the word that entered the digital marketing dictionary as an abbreviation of the word Search Engine Optimization. As the name suggests, SEO is the web improvement studies to having better organic positions in the SERP within a keyword research.
How is the SEO Process?
SEO improvement works are basically divided into two as on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO is technical and content SEO studies carried out inside the website to be improved. Technical SEO includes optimizations such as HTML code tweaks, site speed and server improvements, editing of structured data and rich snippets. In content SEO, starting from the meta title and description fields, image alt tags, title tags (H1, h2, h3, …) and all written content on the website are arranged in accordance with SEO.
On the other hand, off-page SEO can be summarized as studies aiming to increase reputation management and authority in general. Thanks to studies such as frequently referenced external link purchases (backlinks), integration of social media accounts, Google News, RSS studies, a reference is transferred from other websites to the website where SEO work is done. Thanks to these reference transfers, signals are sent to search engines that your website has an authority value on a certain subject.
Keyword Research
SEO processes should first start with identifying valuable keywords for the website and determining the existing organic positions in these words. An SEO strategy should be created based on organic positions and competitive difficulty levels of keywords. During the keyword research process, competitor websites should be identified and the visibility levels and competitiveness of these competitors in keywords should be examined. However, in the keyword research process, the volumes of keywords should be determined through many different tools, and you should consider similar keyword suggestions that will be useful for you through these tools. In another article, we will examine in detail how keyword research should be done.
Technical SEO Process
After the keyword list is prepared and the strategy is determined on the axis of these keywords, technical SEO studies should be started, starting with the home page and the pages triggered by important keywords. Within the scope of technical SEO, the website should first be tested whether the server service is in good condition. Afterwards, it is necessary to clean the pages with 300, 400 and 500 status codes by examining the status codes translated by the website. In the following process, it should be checked whether the codes such as canonical tags, hreflang tags with a multilingual website, and rel=next and rel=prev if they have listing pages are set up correctly. After there are no problems with HTML codes, studies should be carried out to improve the site opening speed. With the completion of all these technically obligatory studies, there are structured data and rich snippet studies that, if done, will make you more valuable in the eyes of search engines and offer you the opportunity to get ahead of your competitors.