So you have designed your first website, hosted it on the best web hosting platform, now what next? There are two things you can do – either take the site and rank it on search engines for the first page or allow it to wallow in the dungeons of forgotten websites.

In the world of online marketing, the Holy Grail is getting your web pages ranking on the first page – preferably on the top three positions – of the search engine result page for the keywords and phrases you desire.

The process of ranking your site is what is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO involves each of the activities carried out on your site that helps search engines such as Google to crawl your site, index and display them when a user queries it with search terms related with your services.

The question becomes does SEO still works? If yes, what how can you leverage it to rank your site?

Yes, SEO still works and here are reasons why you should double up on your optimization efforts.

Why SEO still works

This is the number one reason while SEO will always be relevant. As long as individuals use search engines to research for information, businesses, products, and services then SEO will continue to be relevant.

Whether it’s your business’s website or blog – your site needs SEO for it to be discoverable online. Think of optimizing your site as you tell Google “hey here’s a new site I want you to check out.” So you see, without implementing SEO best practices, search engines are not going to know they exist.

Of course, you can drive tons of visits to your site by running pay-per-click and other ad campaigns but, you’d be spending quite a fortune in the long term. Now, compare that with implementing an SEO strategy that got your site ranked on the first page SERPs where you’d be getting free visits to your site – and as long as you’re ranking high, you don’t pay a dime.

So the question now becomes; what steps do I need to take to rank my site?

Steps to optimize your site for SEO

Conduct in-depth Keyword research: At the foundation of any effective SEO strategy is well-researched keywords / key phrases – these are search terms used by search engine users when searching for products/services or information.

One quick hack to uncovering relevant and high volume key terms is to look below search results you will see related searches and also leveraging on the suggested terms when typing in the search box. Researching your competitions or websites in the same niche could be another goldmine for keyword ideas and finally make use of the free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to uncover more keywords, estimate the search volume and difficulty of each term you select.

Create and publish in-depth contents around your niche: Research has shown that Google favors deep, long-form contents. Your contents should answer people’s questions, inform or entertain them. Strive to maintain a minimum of 800 words for each article, and then naturally work in the keywords.

Ensure your On-Page SEO is on point: An excellent and well laid out web page makes it easier for search engine bots to see and crawl your site, hence speeding up the indexation process. So, it is vital to ensure your tags such as H-tags, img-tags are well placed.

Build Quality Backlinks: Next, link out to other sites; however be careful not to point your sites to irrelevant and low DA and PA sites. Aim to link out to sites in the same niche as yours and which have built up some authority.

The steps listed here are not exhaustive of all the tasks involved in optimizing your website, however, they are a good place to start with your SEO efforts.