There are more than 10,000 SEO specialists in the Netherlands. Day in and day out, these specialists try to get their employer's website to the top spot in Google. Only a few succeed. Most don't even come close, and so you better look for an agency that specializes in SEO.
Why? The answer: there is not one recipe for success. A search engine like Google can only rank pages that have a lot of quality content and meet many other requirements. The algorithm is constantly changing. This means that every year thousands of companies have to learn new strategies to keep up with Google. To give you an idea of how difficult it is to stay on top: last year alone, more than 1 billion websites were created! If your company relies on organic traffic from search engines, you need to ensure that you are always on top of the latest trends. To get a better idea of the complexity of SEO, you can read below about the main and most complex elements of SEO.
Content
You might think that writing articles about your product or service is enough, but you are mistaken. Quality and user-relevant content must be well optimized. The right keywords must be used, images must be added, and the content must be of high quality. There should be a clear hierarchy between the different categories and pages. Think of smart use of internal and external links. All these factors help search engines understand what a particular page is about. It makes it easier for them to index the page and display it in their results when someone searches for something similar.
Linkbuilding
It's not just about the text itself. A website also needs backlinks. Backlinks are links that refer to your site. They increase trust in your brand. Search engines value backlinks because they show that the content of a particular site is relevant. Moreover, it shows that other people value it. That is why link building is so important. Although it sounds easy, creating high-quality backlinks takes a lot of work. Some methods worth considering are guest blogging, social media marketing, and manual outreach. Because this is so complex and time-consuming, most companies choose to outsource link building instead of doing it themselves.
Technical SEO
This is the part where everything starts to come together. On-page optimization means that your site runs smoothly and is easily accessible to search engines. This includes adding meta descriptions and title tags. It also involves using the right code for images and videos. Ever heard of alt tags and canonicals? These two are crucial for SEO. Canonicals tell search engines which version of a webpage you want to display in the results. For example, if you own multiple sites, you can choose one as the canonical URL and use it instead of the others.
Alt tags are used to describe the relevant image or video. As mentioned, search engines cannot see images. They rely on alt tags to know what is happening in the image. Without that, they do not know what the image is about.
User Experience
In the past, users did not care much about how fast a site loaded. Nowadays, they expect immediate access to information. If a page does not load quickly, visitors will leave. That is bad news for both the user and the site owner. The layout of the site is also very important. Users prefer clean layouts. They do not like long texts, pop-ups, or large images that take up the entire screen. They like simple navigation menus. And finally, they appreciate responsive design. If a site is too difficult to navigate, users will eventually turn to your competitors.
