Search Engine Optimization nowadays is more important than ever and it is necessary for every webmaster to understand its deeper implications and the potential it creates for every business.

SEO is a set of rules that can be followed by website or blog owners to optimize their web sites for improving their search engine rankings. SEO also increases the quality of the web sites by making them user- friendly, faster and easier to navigate.

Here are some of the important steps to optimize you web content in a manner that will make both your customers and search engines happy:

1. Think like a User
Understanding your audience’s requirements will guide you through your keyword strategy and content creation. It will also help you provide the best suited information to your prospective customers and search engines.

2. User centric content
Your content and the entire web design must be relatable and user centric. Making your customers your top priority and properly understanding their needs will help you create a content that will attract a large number of potential customers. Also, relatable content will help make loyal customers and retain the older ones.

3. Minimal Keyword repetition
Keyword stuffing adds nothing to user experience and even increases the risk of you being penalized for baiting customers through keyword repetition. It also adds to the irritation of your clients to read the recurrence of same word while scanning.

4. Coverage of SEO basics
Some key points to be kept in mind while designing the content to have an effective influence on the search engines include:

- SEO Title: keep your title within 70 characters so that it shows up in the search engines.

- Meta Description: Meta description should not be longer than 160 characters and try keeping it short but compelling. You must also include your keyword in it.

- H1: Only one H1 must be used every page. It is a visual signal to users which tells the web search tools this is the most critical feature on the page.

- Image alt tag: Adding a caption with appropriate keyword to the image will help it show up in the search engine.

- URLs: Minimalistic and shorter URLs attract more clicks.

- Body Copy: Include the target keyword at the top of the page and at least two or three times throughout the rest of the body including variations of the keyword.

5. Interlinking of pages
It is a must to crosslink your content to other pages on your site because not only does it add relevance to the pages but also keeps people moving through your website and can send traffic to your priority pages.

6. Device Compatibility
Google announced algorithm updates that improve rankings for sites that are mobile-friendly and provide good user experience. The algorithm is applied worldwide, page by page, on a real-time basis and each page’s mobile friendliness is judged separately.

7. Check your crawl errors report once a week
Having a small amount of crawl errors in Google Search Console is a positive signal for Google, as it reflects a good overall website health. However, you must fix a day a week to check your crawl errors report. This will help you deal with a manageable amount of crawl errors and you will always know that they have recently been encountered by the Google bot since they weren’t there last week.

8. Page load speed
According to Google, if your page takes a while to load, it creates poor user experience and the users may opt out of your site immediately. This will increase your site’s bounce rate and bring a fall in the search engine ranking.

9. Offer honest and accurate content
One must avoid click-baits in keywords, headlines and image alt tags as they hamper the reputation of the website. An honest content not adds to the credibility of your website but also helps you achieve a greater per cent of satisfied customers because they are delivered exactly what they had been promised.

10. Go with the flow
When you’re not forced to repeat a keyword, or add unnecessary frailty, all you have to do is go with the flow, keeping the instructions in mind.

Optimizing your web site for search engines will not only give you an advantage over the non-optimized sites but also increase your chances of ranking higher.