For any SEO campaign to be a success, certain factors need to be in place. Although you may have a wrong notion that SEO success factors are too numerous or overwhelming, in this post I’ll show that is not the case.
Furthermore, I’ll narrow down these success factors to the most important ones that you need most for your SEO campaign.
SEO is actually simple but it’s so tricky that you can easily make things complex for yourself. And it’s not even your fault.
There are too much information (and jargon) about SEO out there that it feels very overwhelming.
In truth, you only need three things to be successful with SEO. Yes, just 3 things…
- Indexability
- Proper Site Structure
- High-Quality Content
If you think you need more, you’re only complicating SEO for yourself.
1. Indexability
Indexability simply means how able the Search Engines can crawl and index your website.
You can never be successful with SEO if the Search Engines cannot index your site.
What does index mean in SEO?
Well, indexing in layman’s terms means how well Search Engines can crawl, read and interpret all content on your website.
Typically, when Search Engines can crawl, read and interpret the content on your site, then they save a copy of it, so when any search query matches your content, they show it up with a link to that very content on your site.
A whole lot of technicalities go into indexing but this is the basic knowledge that you need.
How to ensure that your website is indexed?
I’ll highlight two ways that you can check if your website is indexed.
WordPress
If you are using WordPress CMS, here is a quick way to check if your website is indexable:
- Go to settings from your WordPress dashboard
- Reading
- Make sure that the “discouraging search engine from indexing this site” box is not ticked.
Google Search Console
Take the following steps to ensure that your website is indexable on Google:
- Check for any indexing errors from the GSC. If there are any find a way to fix them.
- Do a live test of your domain on GSC to check if it can be indexed.
Robots.txt File
Robots.txt file is a mini-technical tool that grants search engine bots and crawlers access to your site.
On this same tool, you can block Search Engines bots and crawlers from visiting your sites, hence, your site may not be indexable.
Check on Google’s tool if your robots.txt file is not discouraging the Search Engines.
[Read this guide if you are keen on blocking spammy bots from Czechia, Seychelles, or anywhere.]
2. Proper Site Structure
Proper site structuring is another one of the three SEO success factors.
When a website has a good structure, it’ll be easier for Search Engines to understand and interpret your content.
There are many variables to site structuring but I’ll nail it down to just the most important ones:
Properly name categories
Categories help keep your content organized, so readers can understand your site better.
Similarly, Categories help Search Engines to understand your content better.
Therefore, it is important to name your Categories well.
If you are finding it difficult to organize your content in categories, just make sure you group contents that are similar and closely related the most together as much as possible.
Furthermore, here are a few things to keep in mind concerning Categories and site structuring:
- Avoid naming any category as “uncategorized”. It makes no sense for humans and Search Engines.
- Avoid using the same names for tags and categories. For example, if you have a category named SEO, you should not have a tag that bears the same name. That way, you are confusing the Search Engines especially if you have chosen to index both tags and categories.
Read up: Meaning of Taxonomies in WordPress
Generate Sitemap
In reality, you do not need a Sitemap for your content to be indexed on Search Engines.
However, it is crucial that you have a Sitemap so Search Engines can truly understand the structure of your site.
If you use WordPress, Plugins like Yoast and RankMaths can help you generate a perfect XML Sitemap that Search Engines would understand.
Watch this video below to see how to get your Sitemap URL if you use Yoast:
Add Sitemap to Search Engine Consoles
Once you have your Sitemap, it is advisable to add it in the Search Engine Consoles.
Assuming you have the correct URL for your Sitemap, go to the Sitemap page on Google Search Console.
Place your Sitemap URL in the available space and save. Google would automatically read and interpret your Sitemap.
Follow a similar procedure and do the same on the Bing Webmaster tool.
Add Sitemap to Robots.txt file
Adding your Sitemap to the Robots.txt file is not absolutely necessary. However, it is still good to practice and you have nothing to lose.
Doing this further ensures that Search Engine bots have access to your Sitemap.
Read my detailed guide on how to add Sitemap to your robots.txt file.
Proper internal linking strategy
In truth, Internal linking is one of the most important SEO success factors.
In addition, internal linking gives your website credible structure from the Search Engine’s perspective.
You should check out my ultimate Internal Linking tutorial to start building high-authority internal links.
3. High-Quality Content
Indexability and proper site structure are essential to SEO success factors but the most important is high-quality content.
In reality, indexability and proper site structure are generally one-time fixes. But high-quality content needs to be published regularly and continuously from time to time.
Indexability and Site structure are like the SEO foundations that high-quality content leverages to get your site high volume organic traffic.
One important aspect of writing quality content for SEO is Keyword research. While 3rd party tools can be useful for keyword research, you can also do the research on Google if you do not have the budget for these tools.
Read my detailed guide on how to do keyword research on Google and how to choose a focus keyphrase.
Also, I recommend that you read my detailed guide on how to write high-quality content for human readers, not just for Search Engines.
In addition, do not confuse lengthy posts for high-quality content. Find out how long your blog post should be.
Even after writing quality content, you may need to re-optimize old content from time to time. Read my tutorial on how to update old content to double your traffic.
Conclusion
To reiterate, Indexability, proper site structure and high-quality content are the three main SEO success factors.
Once all these 3 key elements are in place, you can be certain to have a successful SEO campaign.
Let’s be clear about one thing: you may be wondering why backlinks are not included as part of SEO success factors.
Well, if your content is good enough, you’ll naturally get links and mentions from high-authority sites without asking for them.
Many experts have been successful in this business without having to manually build backlinks by themselves.
All they needed to be successful are these 3 SEO success factors highlighted here – Indexability, proper site structure, and high-quality content.
The time and money spent building backlinks could be invested in your content production.
Finally, do not make SEO seem complicated to you because it can be straightforward if you block your ears to unnecessary SEO information or jargon. Also, learn how to track your progress or results.
Focus on the points highlighted here and you’re sure to find success in your SEO campaign.
