SEO basics for beginners

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization." It refers to the various efforts made to display your (or your company's) website more prominently in search results in order to increase site visitors.
In other words, the main goal of SEO is to make your website appear higher in search rankings so it catches users' attention, ultimately leading them to your final objective (such as making a purchase).
Listing ads are another way to appear at the top of search results, but SEO aims to achieve high rankings through organic search. As a cost-free measure, it's definitely worth incorporating.

Also, in this article, we assume Google as the search engine.
This is because Google accounts for over 90% of search engine market share in Japan, both on PC and mobile. Note that "Yahoo! JAPAN," a popular portal site in Japan, is in a partnership with Google and uses the same search algorithm, so we treat it as Google in terms of search engines.

With the rise of social media users, we now live in an era where everyone has a mobile device. The number of "smartphone-native" young people who don't own a PC is growing, and senior users are increasing as well.
Against this backdrop, Google announced on its official blog (March 2018) that it would begin Mobile-First Indexing.

Google Webmaster Central Blog "Rolling out mobile-first indexing"

Mobile-First Indexing is a policy of determining search rankings based on the mobile version of websites.
If your existing site isn't optimized for smartphones and tablets like iPads, this means your evaluation from search engines will decline. When launching a new website from now on, it's essential to design with smartphones in mind, prioritizing mobile over PC during development.

For these reasons, building a mobile-friendly website is now essential.
"Mobile-friendly" means that a website is easy to view and use not only on PCs but also on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
Methods to achieve this include using responsive design or switching the display based on the user agent detected via JavaScript or similar means.

Responsive design adjusts a webpage to an appropriate size depending on the user's screen size or browser. It provides similar levels of readability and usability on both PCs and mobile devices, which enhances usability and improves search engine evaluation.
In today's world where everyone has a mobile device, responsive design is a must when renovating an existing site or building a new one.
Another advantage of responsive design is that, since you only build one website that adapts to the viewer's environment, the workload on developers is also reduced.

To check whether your site is mobile-friendly, you can shrink your browser window, or use Google's checking tool. You can also notify Google of the test results, explicitly informing the search engine that your site is mobile-compatible.

Mobile-Friendly Test

In SEO, it's crucial to clearly define who you want to view your site (i.e., your target audience). The keywords people use when searching will vary depending on the target audience. And selecting these keywords is arguably the most important aspect of SEO.

To choose effective keywords, consider the following:

* Persona = A fictional character profile created during product development for someone who would use a particular product or service. By creating a detailed persona—including name, gender, age, hobbies, address, and other personal details—and empathizing with that character, developers can create products and services with superior usability.

From the keywords you come up with, you may wonder which to prioritize.
You can use "Google Ads Keyword Planner" to check whether there's actual demand for a given keyword. Start by addressing the keywords that appear most important to your target audience.

Google Ads Keyword Planner

When choosing a site name, "clarity" is what matters most. With an enormous number of sites out there, giving yours an intuitive, easy-to-understand name is key to attracting visitors.

When these are intuitively clear, people are more likely to click. Try incorporating the keywords you came up with earlier to maximize your SEO impact.

For corporate sites, it's common to use the company name as the site name. From an SEO perspective, combining the company name with relevant keywords is even better. For example, our site is named "Branding Company BOEL Inc." to clearly emphasize that we specialize in branding. This also makes it easier for users to understand what kind of company we are.
If it's difficult to incorporate keywords into the main title, consider adding them to the subtitle.

A domain is essentially an address on the internet. For our site at https://boel.jp/, "boel.jp" is the domain. ".jp" stands for Japan, indicating that the site belongs to a Japanese organization.
You often see domains like "○○.co.jp"—here, "co" stands for corporate, so co.jp means a corporate site of a Japanese company.
Other common domains include ".com" for commercial organizations, ".net" (short for network) for network-related sites, ".info" (short for information) for information services, and "ne.jp" for network services. When launching a new website, choose a custom domain that fits the characteristics of your site.

Once you've decided on the type of domain, choose a domain name. For a corporate site like ours, simply use the company name (https://boel.jp/ ← the domain name includes our company name "boel"). Ideally, the domain name should match the SEO-effective site name you came up with earlier.
However, as mentioned, a domain is like an address, so if it's already in use, you can't use it. You can check availability on the websites of domain registrars, so be sure to look it up in advance.

To make your site easy and convenient for users, the site's structure is important. Keep the hierarchy as shallow as possible. This helps users reach their desired pages more quickly.
Also, consider adding internal links so users can smoothly navigate to their target pages. Appropriate internal links not only guide users to the desired pages but also help improve the site's circulation rate. However, internal links should only connect pages with high relevance to each other.

SSL (TLS) is a security technology that encrypts information exchanged over the internet to protect important data such as personal information. As the internet has spread, the need to implement encrypted communication has grown. Regular site URLs start with "http://", while sites with encrypted communication start with "https://".

From an SEO perspective, SSL implementation is also important. In 2017, Google announced that its browser (Google Chrome) would display warnings on pages that are not SSL-encrypted. Many sites currently use SSL only on parts like contact forms, but going forward, having SSL across every page (i.e., "Always-On SSL") will become essential.

For more on SSL, please refer to the following article.

DigiCert & Symantec "What is Always-On SSL/TLS"

Content SEO is an approach to SEO that places emphasis on "content." By continually creating and publishing high-quality, original content, you raise the evaluation from users, which in turn improves your search rankings.

Google has clearly indicated a policy of evaluating sites based on the quality of their content. In other words, "by creating high-quality, useful content for site visitors, your search engine ranking will improve as a result."

High-quality content addresses users' concerns and challenges and provides solutions. The reason for recommending original content is that information from online research isn't always entirely accurate, even if you reference other websites. This isn't to say online research is bad—but don't rely on it too heavily, and always verify primary sources when referencing them.

The measures described above take time to show results. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to regularly check your site and keep it in optimal condition for attracting clicks.
For more on analytics tools, please refer to the following article.

TIPS VOL.38 Google Analytics: A Handy Web Analytics Tool Worth Knowing

Search Console is another effective tool for SEO. Search Console is a free service that lets you monitor and manage your site's performance in Google search results.
It helps you understand how Google perceives your site, which is invaluable for optimizing your site's performance in search results.

What is Search Console

How was that?
To reiterate, mobile compatibility is essential for SEO going forward.
Also, focusing too much on improving search rankings at the expense of site quality defeats the purpose. Google publishes quality guidelines, so be sure to review them.
Let's focus on SEO without forgetting about usability.