The total guide to SEO for your website [December 2022].

In this comprehensive guide created by the experts at Deep Marketing we will share with you everything you need to know about SEO to increase the visibility of your site and brand on search engines. The information below is expressly optimized forItaly and up-to-date.

The text is divided into clear "golden rules" for better memorization and applicability.

Understand your audience

It is essential to have an understanding of your target audience if you want to succeed with SEO. Knowing who you are targeting and what their interests are will help you create content and optimize your site so that it resonates with them in a way that is natural and never too annoying. Your target audience is usually your customers, but it doesn't have to be. Rather, they could be opinion leaders or a broader target audience so you can create better brand awareness.

You need to understand not only what your target people are interested in, but more importantly their values, what they care about. Only in this way, beyond mere arguments, will you be able to strike at the heart of your target audience by getting closer to them emotionally.

To better understand your audience, consider various data collections. From analyzing your Web site through Google Analytics to cookieless tracking systems-such as those Deep Marketing reserves for its customers-to conducting surveys or interviews with your current customers. Ask questions about their needs, preferences and motivations so you can tailor your content for them.

In addition, it is important to analyze competitors ' Web sites and keywords to get an idea of the type of content that works best. The best tools in this regard are Semrush, SE Ranking or SpyFu. These will help you identify topics relevant to your audience and create engaging content that people on target will be happy to read. Finally, use tools such as Semrush Market Explorer or a Quora search to understand the types of questions being asked about your key topics. By understanding your target audience, you will be able to create valuable content and optimize your website accordingly for the best possible indexing on Google.

Search your keywords

When it comes to SEO, keyword research is essential. Knowing what keywords your target audience is searching for can help you create content that meets their needs and ranks well. As well as going deep in establishing a connection with these people.

During keyword research, the goal is to find terms with a high search volume, relevant to your topic, and low competition.

Let us repeat the three variables:

1. High search volume
2. Relevant
3. Low Competition

To do this, you should start by creating a list of general topics related to your main scope. Then add phrases that your customers can use in their searches, following the directions in the previous chapter. You can leverage a keyword research tool to analyze the strength of your keywords and determine how you rank in your industry.

Knowing what terms and phrases your competitors are positioning themselves for can help you identify hidden and undervalued opportunities.

Different companies have different methods for keyword research, but if you do not want to purchase a subscription for one of the tools presented above, the best way to start is to use the Google Ads keyword tool. With this platform you can collect data on keyword volume and competition, as well as related search terms.

After gathering data on potential keywords, you should prioritize those with high volume to low competition, and mid-range to long-tail, for quick results. So many gurus advise limiting yourself to the latter, but there is no evidence. The best strategy is always mixed and complex.

Be wary of easy recipes.

If you combine SEO actions with SEM actions (such as with Google Ads) and capitalize on the keyword research effort, don't forget to use reverse-matching keywords to make sure your content doesn't show up in irrelevant searches. By following these steps, you can ensure that your SEO strategy is built on a solid foundation.

Optimize your site for mobile devices

When it comes to winning the war in the search engines, optimization for mobile devices is essential. With most people now using their cell phones to access the Internet, it is essential for businesses to ensure that their Web site is especially loved by mobile devices. Fortunately, there are several strategies that can help you ensure that your site is optimized in this direction.

First, you should make sure that your site uses a " responsivedesign." This means that your Web portal will respond dynamically to the device being used, ensuring that the user has a good experience no matter what screen they are browsing on. You should also make sure that the loading speed of your pages is as fast as possible. Mobile device users expect pages to load quickly, and any delay will cause them to leave your site at lightning speed.

It is also important to keep the site design simple and easy to navigate. Mobile devices have smaller screens, and it is important to make sure the user can easily find what they are looking for. Make sure that any popups are well placed and do not interfere with the user experience.

Warning. Don't make the mistake of over-optimizing pages with overly sparse and overly minimal graphics, forgetting that people want excitement and browse sites that are pleasing to the eye. This is not an easy challenge, which is why we at Deep Marketing put great effort into this mix of different needs for our clients' sites.

Finally, be sure to optimize your page titles for mobile SERPs (i.e., in search engine results). This way you will help users find your portal quickly in Google listings and succeed in getting more clicks from mobile users.

Create quality content; regularly

Creating high-quality content is essential to any successful SEO strategy. It is important to create content that is relevant to your audience and optimized.

To do this, it is critical to first clear the points already seen: 1) understand your target audience, 2) conduct keyword research, and 3) think in terms of mobile. Below, be sure to:

1. Plan posts often with a strict and consistent editorial agenda
2. Develop a link building strategy-see last point of this guide.
3. Continuously update content and work on user experience.

Quality content will always be the foundation of any successful SEO strategy, so be sure to consistently create content that is informative, engaging and optimized for search engine rankings. Simplifying as much as possible, give yourself these rules:

• Don't have "holes" in the schedule. Determine how often to publish and "stick to the calendar." There are no holidays, no breaks, no excuses. Google does not appreciate them.
• Create the highest quality material with a lot of research, attention, and understanding what your users want.
• You can write articles of less than 1,000 words, but they will be indexed worse. Today, Google greatly appreciates important, well-disciplined material.

Of these three rules, interestingly the most important is the first. A site left to itself and not updated with fresh material is the worst thing you can do.

Track and monitor your progress

Monitoring your SEO progress is essential to understand which tactics are working and which need to be adjusted. This is critical feedback.

We notice that this part of the work is often ignored because it is the most annoying and tedious. We know.

With a comprehensive set of tracking tools, you can observe your website's keyword visibility and performance in search engine results, analyze the progress of your link building strategies, and monitor your position in SERPs. Ranking tracking software is a great way to measure your progress over time and manage your operations and resources.

As we have seen, tools such as Semrush or SE Ranking contain a more than sufficient variety of tools to help you automate SEO activities and track your analytics. Using these tools, you can gain valuable information about the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and make adjustments to ensure maximum success.

Strategically use internal connections

The clever use of internal linking between pages and articles on your site is an effective SEO technique that is often ridiculously underestimated. Instead, it helps share link juice -- i.e., Google's appreciation -- among the pages of your site, which increases the internal authority of each section. Think of this activity as constantly creating clusters, i.e., local "webs" of interrelated articles with common topics. Google greatly appreciates this.

When creating internal links, be sure to use descriptive anchor text and link to important pages. Be careful not to use the same anchor text for two different pages. You can check your internal links with Google Search Console. to make sure they are properly optimized.

According to some SEO experts, it is advisable to place links at the top of the page, all factors being equal. But don't worry about it too much: limit yourself to not creating too many "orphan" pages that are detached from the rest of the site.

Use social media

Social media platforms are an effective way to increase the visibility of your website and create an online presence. Having a profile on major platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn can help you reach a wider audience and increase your search engine rankings organically. In addition, these platforms can be used to generate backlinks that are very useful for SEO ranking.

Remember that your success on Google depends not only on how well you work within your site and with your content, but also on how many external sites link to your content!

When working on social media, be sure to use relevant keywords as part of your profile and post information. This will help search engines understand what your profile is about and better understand the meaning of your posts and the links they are linked to, thus increasing your chances of appearing in search engine results.

Also on social media, it is important to post regular updates and that these are relevant and interesting to your target audience. This discipline will keep people engaged and improve the likelihood that they will navigate your website from shared links. Using hashtags when posting content or updates will help increase visibility.

Accelerates the loading speed of your site

Site loading speed is critical to user experience and search engine rankings, especially with mobile connections. A slow Web site can negatively and significantly affect your Web site's indexing, user experience, and even conversions.

To speed up the loading time of your portal and improve your SEO, in addition to having a great server and excellent hosting you need to focus on reducing HTTP requests in the front-end code (the visible part of the site), compressing CSS, JS files, using the browser cache, minimizing code, andoptimizing images.

Let's take a closer look at some points.

Enabling compression of large files is one of the best ways to reduce page download times. It is even better if you can pre-size images and videos before uploading them to the site. This helps users' browsers load resources faster because of their smaller size.

Minimizing CSS, JavaScript and HTML can help keep your site's page weights down a priori and make them load faster, simply because they take up fewer bytes that way.

Reducing redirects is another key factor in improving page performance. Redirects increase the number of HTTP requests and consequently slow down your website. It is important to remove all unnecessary redirects to ensure that the portal loads quickly.

A redirect is an instruction given to search engines that sounds like, "The page you're looking for is in another link! Here it is."

Taking advantage of browser caching is another effective way to speed up page load times. Caching allows the browser to store some files locally so that they do not have to be downloaded from the server every time a page is loaded. It is good to consider, however, that overuse of caching presents privacy problems (e.g., if cookies are abused) and risks of incorrect display of content because old content may remain in users' browsers.

Make sure URLs are descriptive and relevant

Creating descriptive and relevant URLs is essential to an SEO strategy. We are literally talking about the links, slugs, that is, the "name" of the page in the browser.

Descriptive URLs give search engines an idea of what the page content is about, as well as being enticing to potential visitors. It is best to make sure they are accurate, easily readable, and place the main keyword as close to the top as possible.

Short URLs perform better than longer ones, so keep them concise and straight to the point. You should also make sure the URL is incredibly relatable to the content on the page; this helps search engines determine relevance to a search made by users. If done correctly, a descriptive URL can help to greatly increase the click-through rate from search engine results pages.

Write unique META descriptions for each page

Meta-descriptions are short summaries of website pages that are hidden from users but are highly valued by Google and appear under the title tag in search engine results. Or on social media.

They offer an opportunity to provide additional information about the content of your page and help potential readers decide whether or not the page is relevant to their needs. Writing unique meta descriptions for each page of your Web site is a key part of creating a worthy SEO strategy.

Meta descriptions should be concise, accurately reflect the content of the page, and entice readers to click from search engine link lists. Be sure to keep them between 140 and 160 characters so that they are not truncated in the results.

Take advantage of structured data markup

Structured data is an important part of the picture. It helps search engines understand the content of your Web site and gives them the information they need to display your pages in search results. Using structured data, or "schema markup," helps several to distinguish you from your competitors by providing a more detailed and informative search result for users.

When it comes to using structured data for SEO, you need to be strategic. Identify the best data for your website, such as reviews, local business information or images. Use schema markup to provide detailed information about your page content and make sure it is accurate and up-to-date. This will ensure that search engines are able to understand your page and present it accurately in search results. In addition, you can leverage structured data to improve the way your pages are displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs). A nontrivial benefit.

All modern CMSs for website management allow, natively or via plugins, to edit structured data. Obviously it's a big job to do this for every page, so focus on the main ones just to get started.

Optimize images with alternative text

Enhancing images with alt text is an important element of on-page SEO optimization. Adding descriptive, keyword-rich "alt text" to images can give your page's visibility a boost.

Alt tags should be short and accurately describe the image, using the most consistent site keywords. Among other things, when used correctly, they can improve the user experience by providing a better match between images and content. Also, for those with visual impairments, an alt text allows browsers to "describe an image." A great help and a form of respect for all your users.

Adding alternative text to images on your Web site is easy and can be done quickly in any CMS, such as WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Gravity....

Optimize your site in local directories

Maintaining your local listings is an important part ofoptimizing for offsitelocal SEO, that is, outside the website.

Local directories are online directories where your business can be listed and found by potential customers. Claiming and optimizing these local directories can help your business appear in local search results. To get started, you will need to register with each local directory, making sure that all information about your business is accurate and up-to-date. We also recommend that you add images, a Web site link, and a very accurate and thorough description of what you offer. Even better, with hours and specifications.

After claiming your listings, you will need to optimize them with relevant keywords. This way you will help users find your business when they search for these terms. Also, staying active on your local tab pages by adding new content or responding to customer reviews can help improve visibility and engagement.

The most popular local directory is probably Google My Business: https://www.google.com/business/

Taking the time to claim and optimize local listings can make a big difference in your business' visibility in local search results.

Link building

We will devote an article to link building, because it is a whole universe. Here we just need some basic rules and understand what it is all about.

As we have seen above, optimizing our own site, content, pages, servers and platforms we own is only part of the job. The other part is finding someone to "link" to us and thus transfer some of their "link juice," that is, the authority they possess in the eyes of Google. This is what link building activity is for. Let's look at the key rules:

1. Understand the basics of link building: before starting any link building campaign, it is important to understand its basics and the different types of links that exist. This includes understanding the concept of PageRank, how links work in search engine algorithms, and what Google considers a "good quality" link.

2. You should be aware of what makes a good quality link and how to identify it. For example, you should look for links from reputable sources, such as established Web sites and publications. Also, Google takes into account the relevance and context of each link, so you should make sure that the links you use are related to the content you are linking from.

3. Creating interesting, relevant and well-written content will naturally attract links from other Web sites that have similar content or topics on their own sites.

4. Guest Posting: guest posting is an effective way to get backlinks from other Web sites. If you are able to write interesting or useful articles for other Web sites, they are likely to link to your Web site when they publish your article.

Of course, it is all infinitely more complex than that. Link building is an art and a profession of extreme complexity .

Conclusion

The world of SEO is constantly evolving, so staying up-to-date on the latest trends and tools is essential. By following the strategies discussed above, however, you can ensure that your Web site remains high in search engine rankings. Developing a comprehensive SEO strategy is the key to improving your Web site's visibility and getting the maximum number of visitors.

Create high-quality content, optimize your site for mobile devices, track and monitor your progress, use internal linking strategies, leverage social media and links, and stay ahead of the game to ensure your website is always one step ahead of the competition.

Allow us to close with two remarks:

1. There are so many activities and their difficulty so high, that SEO should seriously be followed by a partner or agency. Doing it alone is almost unattainable.
2. Much of the advice expressed in this article can be summed up in one sentence: do great content marketing and make yourself interesting. Not surprisingly, many insist that "SEO is dead," and they actually have a point since 90 percent of what we've been saying falls under professional web marketing.