SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has and still is one of the most effective and easiest way of marketing your content by ranking highly in the search engines. SEO is an effective tool but has to be used properly for the results to be realized. SEO is such a popular and effective tool of marketing that college students are striving to learn the skill from an early age of life. There however lingers many questions and misconceptions that are yet to be addressed properly to help college students and other novices understand SEO better. Here are the Top 15 Search Engine Optimization Questions from College Students and the much needed answers to the questions;
1. What is SEO?
For those looking to know what Search Engine Optimization is, these are the methods and tactics use to increase the number of people visiting your website by working hard to get a high rank on the search engines and relevant platforms. The traffic will help you sell or promote your products and services or make your company well known in the market.
2. Does the keyword density still matter?
Gone are the times when SEO was all about the quantity of the keyword phrases in an article. Search engines nowadays have artificial intelligence and intuition which means that for your site to rank well, you have to do more than just stuffing the keywords. It more about the quality of the work rather than the quantity of the keyword phrases.
3. What is the appropriate length of articles for SEO?
Although the length of the content is not very crucial when it comes to SEO ranking, studies have shown that articles with 2000+ words tend to rank well compared to short articles on websites. Well-documented articles that are long enough and engaging will rank well because they will cover most of the key points the customers and visitors will be looking for hence more clicks and more shares.
4. How effective is SEO? How long before I start seeing results from SEO?
SEO is not like a test that you get done within a few hour. It is a gradual process that takes time and patience. When properly carried out though, the results of SEO can be evident from as early as one week and can take as much as two months to see any significant change. It all depends on the methods and techniques employed.
5. Does working as a SEO expert pay?
As a college student, it is important for you to know that you can make quite an amount working as a SEO expert. There are thousands of SEO agencies and other companies that are looking to hire people like you to help their pages rank well. This is a very lucrative industry that has employed hundreds of thousands of people.
6. Can I get penalties for linking to bad or low quality websites?
As a newbie, there is always the fear of linking out to sites that rank lower than yours or generally lower quality sites. The truth is you can get penalized when you link to sites that are either unrelated or have amassed penalties themselves. It is therefore important to look at the reputation and quality of the websites you want to link out to lest you will get penalized.
7. Negative SEO, should I be bothered?
Yes, unfortunately some people will do anything to outrank you and will employ malicious tactics to achieve this. This includes building backlinks that are unrelated which will only earn you penalties. Always monitor all the backlinks you are getting and don’t hesitate to create a disavow report to Google.
8. How do I ensure that my content is good enough for SEO?
When creating content, there are a few factors that you should consider to ensure that the content will rank well in the search engines. First of all ensure that the content is free from any spelling and grammatical errors. Make sure the content is engaging and fulfils the needs of the clients. This way, the users will read it over and over and even share the link elsewhere.
9. Is the website loading speed any important in terms of SEO?
Oh Yes! Nobody wants to wait for a page to load for ‘hours’ when there are other pages that will open in seconds. Reduce the number of images on your content and employ better servers for faster loading.
10. Do adverts really affects SEO?
Many people don’t know this but Google actually has an algorithm whose sole purpose is to detect the number of ads on a page. If your site has too many ads you might find yourself in the latter pages of search engines.
11. Can Facebook help me in SEO?
Yes social media will help you so much with SEO. Share your links on social media platforms and this will drastically improve your rank if your users engage with the links and open them.
12. How safe is it to buy a backlink?
So long as it is a no follow back link, there is no problem at all. It is however important to note that it is against the Google guidelines to try manipulate your rank by purchasing backlinks.
13. Does the structure of my content affect SEO in any way?
Yes, remember it is all about quality these days. Don’t write as if you are writing for the search engines, instead create content for the readers and visitors of your page. Structure your articles well and you will get very good rankings when people love the work.
14. Should I do SEO work for free to get some experience in the field?
No, just don’t. There are agencies and companies that will try to exploit the vulnerability of college students and ask them to do some SEO jobs for free. Please, always demand some compensation for all the SEO work done.
15. Are the traditional SEO techniques still relevant today?
For a long time, Keyword density and backlinks have been the sole tools used in SEO. This is slowly changing because Google and the other search engines are developing better algorithms that are smarter and sooner or later the traditional techniques will be null. For the meantime though, it is a good idea to employ them but prioritize the quality of content always.