Do you know how hard it is to be seen on the internet in 2019? Think about the billions of videos available on YouTube and then consider how likely it is for you to be discovered among those petabytes, that’s a lot of zeros, of data unless people are specifically searching for you. The democratization of internet has enabled people to access information in a way they weren’t able to two decades ago but it has also enabled those very same people to publish their own information to the internet, no matter how irrelevant it might seem.
You could find almost everything you want the internet, including the fact that in the year 897, Pope Stephen VI dug up the corpse of his predecessor for usurping the Holy See, or the fact that you could buy a bottle of Miley Cyrus’ younger sister’s tears for a whopping US$12,000. The internet is a weird, wonderful and extremely crowded place, which underscores just how important SEO services and the practice of SEO in general when dealing with the issue of discoverability on the internet.
Overlooked items on the bottom shelf
There’s this neat website called Forgetify whose sole purpose is to stream you songs that has never been played before. In 2014, Spotify came out with a report that out of the 20 million songs they have on the service, 80% have been played at least once, which means that there are at least 4 million songs out there that have never been played, which is kind of sad. And it’s not just for Spotify, there’s also a similar website for YouTube videos with 0 views and Instagram posts with zero likes.
I regularly use Forgetify when I’m bored or feeling adventurous and while admittedly there are a number of songs of, let’s just say, questionable qualities, some of them are actually pretty decent. They’re not exactly songs I’d voluntarily listen to in my free time but they’re also songs that I wouldn’t mind listening to if they were played on the radio, which makes them better than at least half of the songs on top 40 radio. Again, quality isn’t the issue here but it’s discoverability that’s preventing these songs from finding an audience.
It’s a shame there isn’t a service for websites with zero visits but if there are any, I’m assuming the numbers would be just as big. Type in any query you want into Google search and you’re bound to be presented with millions of results in dozens of pages, which is a pretty big crowd to try to stand out in. The amount of data floating around on the internet is just insane and if you’ve never considered SEO before this, here are 4 tips any beginner should take note of when it comes to SEO.
Search for and use relevant keywords
For example, if I type the name ‘Stella Donnelly’ in Google, I’m going to be presented with more than 10 million results but If I try to be more specific and instead type in ‘Stella Donnelly Beware of the Dogs review’ to look for reviews on the Perth musician’s debut album, I’m presented with a much narrower scope of 165,000 results. Keyword is the pillar SEO is built on and by taking your time to do your homework on the keywords you should be using; you could be much more effective on your SEO efforts.
To begin with, try focusing less on short, generic keywords and instead focusing your resource on long-tail, more specific keywords. This would narrow your competition and with so much data floating around the internet, people are becoming increasingly specific with their searches. As of now, more naturalistic language is increasingly used, with actual questions being used as queries instead of just a bunch of words used together.
Quality instead of quantity when it comes to backlinks
PageRank, the main algorithm Google use when they first made their search engine publicly available, heavily revolves around the number and quality of inbound links pointing to your site. Search engine algorithms have changed a lot since then but backlinks, their quality in particular, are still an important factor. A single link from a reputable website would holds considerably more value than dozens of links originating from obscure blogs so always keep this fact in mind during your link building campaigns,
Properly optimize your website for mobile devices
The reign of desktop on the internet was pretty much numbered when Apple’s iPhone revolutionized mobile internet and in the decade since, we’ve seen bezel-less smartphones providing plenty of space for our mobile browsing needs and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, if ever. With this in mind, always make it a point to ensure that your website works just as well when viewed from mobile devices compared to when viewed on a computer monitor. Google now indexes website based on their mobile version and you need to adjust your SEO approach accordingly.
Use analytical tool to measure your progress
Once you’ve laid the groundwork for your SEO campaign, the next step is to track how well or, God forbid, badly how you’re doing by using an analytical tool to measure your website’s statistics. The easiest tool to use is Google Analytics, which has a free version available if you’re still on the fence about how effective it is. There are various similar tools available across the internet and really, you’re pretty spoiled for choice here. Anyway, the tools you’re using matters less, it’s the data that is of the utmost importance.