Do You Know the First Principles of SEO & How to Make Them Work for Your Good?
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In the current digital marketing industry, SEO is a key component for success. As part of this, top-ranking SEO specialist Kevin Indig coined the term “SEO First Principles” which refers to the foundational truths of SEO that go beyond merely what we have been told is true by others. These are facts rather than assumptions and they can really change your whole SEO ranking game. But what exactly are these first principles and how can you benefit from them?
What Are the SEO First Principles & Why Do They Matter?
In essence, the first principles are the most fundamental truths of a concept. According to Indig, the first principles of SEO are “the smallest building blocks; the things and laws we know to be true.” These are facts that have been backed by evidence and research, which is why they are integral when optimising your website for SEO.?
He has outlined the 10 first principles of SEO as:
Whenever you encounter an issue or scale your SEO strategy, these first principles will come in handy to model your strategy accordingly.
What Do These Mean for You & Your SEO Strategy?
Have Relevant Content
The more relevant your content is, the more likely it is to rank higher in search results
This is one of the most common ranking factors out there. Earlier in the Internet age, it was simply enough to mention keywords a couple of times on a site for it to be relevant. Though keywords are still important today, content needs to have high relevance for the query, informational depth, answer all questions about a topic and match user intent. The more relevant your content is, the more likely it is to rank higher in search results. Ensure that the length, depth and relevance of body content is optimised for the targeted query.?
Also remember that content is not only the text you; it's also images, videos, GIFs and more. Adding a descriptive alt-tag and file name also increases the relevance of your content, especially for search queries that require more visual results.
Understand How Crawling, Indexing & Ranking Works
Optimise your content with links
Search engines have crawlers or spiders that search the World Wide Web to discover pages that exist in order. This is done to identify the best web pages to be evaluated for a query. Crawlers travel through website links. As they travel through these links, they create a pathway for the crawlers to reach the trillions of interconnected website pages that exist.?
However, with search engines like Google, they don’t crawl every web page that exists. Rather, they start with a trusted set of websites that serve as the basis for determining how other websites measure up. By following the links on pages that they visit, they expand across the web over time. This crawling allows a webpage to later be indexed when a query is typed in the search engine. (This index is a collection of web pages, like a database, that includes information on the pages crawled by search engine spiders.) These results are then ranked, based on relevance and importance. Before it decides which web pages to show from the index and in what order, search engines apply algorithms to help rank those web pages.?
So, to ensure your webpage even shows up in the index, you must optimise your content with links, as we will discuss below.
Know How to Use Links
Google and other major search engines use backlinks as votes for a specific page
Internal and external links still have a decent influence on rankings and play a major role in indexing of web documents.?
External links, or backlinks, are essentially links from one website to a page on another website. Google and other major search engines use backlinks as votes for a specific page. Pages with a high number of backlinks tend to have high organic search engine rankings as a result. Simply speaking, the more of these votes you have, the higher your site will rank in search engines.
The quality of backlinks depends on many factors, such as anchor text, strength of the link source, and matching content relevance between link source and target.?
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Internal links are powerful ranking signals, too. They pass link equity from page to page. You might do this on your site by linking to related shop categories or other relevant blogs. Not only is this helpful for your users, but it helps Google see your site.
By carefully working on your overall linking strategy, you can show Google that your site or particular page is relevant for users with particular queries.
Optimise for User Intent
Always include keywords in your title or a common query in order to stay relevant
User intent is the goal a user is trying to achieve when searching online. People either want to buy, visit a specific page or find out more about a topic. If user intent isn't met, a page won't rank. You must therefore optimise your page for user intent accordingly. For instance, job listings and real estate results rank better by location. In some cases, image galleries work better than blogs or essays since a user may be looking for visual results. However, most times, titles are the best way to ensure you rank high in search results. That’s why you should always include keywords in your title or a common query in order to stay relevant.
Avoid Spammy Content
Your content needs to live up to the required expertise in quality and length
E-A-T or Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness is another key component in ranking. For you to be recognised as an authentic authority, you must include information on your webpage like an "About Us” page or provide a correct and full address for your services. This will allow the search engine to identify you as an authority and not a spam.?
Your content also needs to live up to the required expertise in quality and length. Do not include irrelevant information as you will be mistaken for spam content. This is why you want to carefully research any content before publishing it, as well as taking care to ensure it is written well and in a way users can easily understand.
Other factors like domain age, reputation, reviews, and ratings also matter. For instance, having recommendations and endorsements from other, neutral sites can also boost your ranking status.
Blank Theory is an experienced digital marketing agency with a team of SEO specialists who understand these foundational principles inside and out. If you’re ready to take your business to a new level when it comes to organic searches, be sure to get in touch today for further insights and digital marketing assistance!