Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the means of optimizing a website around targeted keywords and improving a websites reputation on the Internet. Many businesses in South Africa use SEO to drive leads and sales. SEO is the most trusted form of traffic. SEO has the highest conversion rate and is the key element of growing a business today.

Many businesses use SEO to promote their service-based or product-based goods. Finding a reliable SEO company in South Africa is challenging, as many SEO companies use old and outdated techniques. This article will discuss the Step-by-Step process of SEO so people can better understand SEO and find a qualified provider.

The first step of SEO is keywords. Keywords are terms and phrases typed into Google to find information, products, and services. The goal of SEO is to find popular keywords people use on Google to find your goods. This can be done with Keyword Research.

Keyword Research allows SEO specialists to dig for targeted keywords that benefit your business. Keyword Research provides the following information:

These are terms or phrases that people use on Google.

EXAMPLE: “SEO Agency South Africa”

This is the average number of times people type a keyword into Google every month.

EXAMPLE: “SEO Agency South Africa” = 480 searches per month

This is the level of competition of a keyword which is either Low, Medium, or Hard.

EXAMPLE: “ SEO Agency South Africa”= Low

This is the amount you would Pay-Per-Click if you used their Paid Advertising.

EXAMPLE: “SEO Agency South Africa”= R35.12 per click

Keyword Research allows SEO specialists to target High-Volume keywords for your SEO campaigns. SEO specialists will incorporate keywords naturally in your webpage to inform Google that your webpage aims to rank on Page 1 of Google for these specific keywords.

Keyword Research allows SEO Specialists to provide the Cost-Per-Click for specific keywords if a company decides to use the Paid Advertising platform. The Cost-Per-Click varies according to industry and competition. Businesses can pay anywhere between R1- R1000 per click.

Before you begin your Google Marketing campaigns, you need to set up your Google Analytics and Google Search Console account. The process includes adding code to the HTML side of your website to track important website information. Sign up for both accounts and forward the tracking information to your web designer. If you are adding the code yourself, and do not have much coding knowledge, use Plugins to simplify the process.

Google Analytics tracks user behavior on your website. You can track which pages your users visited, how long they stayed on your website, what device they used to access your website, their physical location plus much more. Google Analytics creates peace of mind by ensuring that your Google marketers are sending traffic to your website, whether it be organic or paid traffic.

Google search console tracks the relationship between your website and Google. You can track if your webpages were indexed by Google, which search terms people used on Google to find your website, measure the speed and user experience, track impressions, clicks, ranking positions, and much more. Google search console provides information as to why your website dropped its ranking position or why it’s not ranking in the first place. (Eg: virus)

On-Page SEO is the means of implementing specific changes to your website, so it’s optimized around targeted keywords. SEO agencies will examine your website and decide on the necessary changes to improve your overall SEO score.

The SEO agency will add information and media to your website if needed. Google dislikes websites with little content, these types of websites are known as Content-Thin sites. Adding written content and images is an extremely important part of SEO.

The SEO company will edit your content to optimize your webpage around targeted keywords. Targeted keywords should be mentioned in around 2% of your written content. Repeating keywords is known as keyword spamming and must be always avoided.

The SEO specialist will add important keywords to a Meta Title and Meta Description of a webpage. The Meta Title is the title displayed on Search Engines, and meta description is the description displayed on Search Engines.

The SEO expert will add different types of headings (H1, H2, H3, H4) to a website and include the right number of keywords in each heading. Headings improve the readability of a page by structuring content which positively contributes to the SEO score.

SEO agency will provide recommendations for the structure and navigation of a website. Websites follow traditional methods that users can easily recognize and simple navigation to make the user experience seamless.

The SEO professional will optimize images by reducing the size of large images. Large images slow down loading times of a website. They will optimize the ‘Alt Attribute’ of an image which provides a description of an image for browsers that cannot load the image.

SEO agencies will make changes to the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a website if not optimized correctly. Many URLs can contain date information instead of including important keywords.

SEO companies will add XML sitemaps to your website if needed. XML sitemaps provide information to Google Spiders that crawl the Internet looking to index information on websites.

SEO experts will add Internal links which are text links linking to other pages of the same website. Internal links make navigation easier for browsing users and improve the user experience.

The download speeds of a website are a vital part of SEO. Slow-loading websites do not rank well on Google, regardless of how well the site is SEO optimized. SEO professionals will assess the download speed of a site and implement the necessary adjustments.

Websites that are not mobile-friendly do not perform on Google. SEO experts will check if the website is responsive to different types of devices (Laptops, Mobile Phones, iPads) before marketing the business.

Off-page SEO refers to work done outside of the website. Off-page SEO includes creating high-quality content that can be shared with different websites online. A website that displays your website link is referred to as a backlink. Backlinks are not the same.

One backlink can be more powerful than 100 backlinks. The quality of the backlinks counts more than the quantity. A backlink should fall under the following criteria:

High DA means the website is a high-authority website and can be trusted. The DA score ranges from 0-100. 0 beings the lowest DA score, and 100 is the highest DA score. Websites with High DA scores that link back to your website create trust with the search engines.

Low Spam scores are websites that link to low-quality sites and implement questionable SEO practices. Spam Scores range from 0-100. 0 Being the lowest and 100 being the highest Spam Score. You only want to link from websites with Low Spam Scores.

Relevant websites do not compete in your industry but rather complement your industry. A website linking to other websites in a similar industry greatly contributes to your SEO score. For instance, a backlink from an SEO company can appear on a Web Design site that solely focuses on graphic and web design.

Local backlinks are links from websites in the same country as your website. Local backlinks are powerful as they improve your local rankings on Google Search and Google My Business. Google My Business is Google’s business directory that provides information on local industries (Business Address, Website Address, Phone Number)

The SEO provider should send you monthly reports of all the links they have built to your website. These reports should include:

• Backlink URL

• Backlink Anchor Text

• Content Associated with Backlink

• Backlink Date

• Do Follow or No Follow Backlink