SEO Basics

What Is SEO?

SEO is the practice of optimizing your website so search engines like Google can better understand and rank your content.

Good SEO helps:

• People find your site more easily

• Search engines understand your content

• Improve credibility and visibility over time
  

SEO is not instant—it’s a long-term strategy.

How Search Engines Work (Simple Overview)

Search engines:

1. Crawl your site (scan pages and links)

2. Index your content (store it in their database)

3. Rank pages based on relevance, structure, and quality

Well-structured content makes each of these steps easier.

Website Structure and SEO

Your site’s structure plays a major role in SEO.

Why Structure Matters

• Helps search engines understand page relationships

• Improves navigation for users

• Makes content easier to crawl and index

Best Practices for Structure

• Use clear page hierarchies

• Group related content together

• Avoid deeply nested pages

• Use categories and tags consistently
  

A well-structured site benefits both users and search engines.

What Are URL Slugs?

A slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page.

Example:

example.com/weekly-bulletin

In this case, weekly-bulletin is the slug.

SEO Best Practices for Slugs

Good slugs help search engines and users understand what a page is about.

Recommended

• Short and descriptive

• Uses real words

• Includes relevant keywords

• Uses hyphens (-) instead of underscores
  

Example:
/bulletin-archive-2024

Avoid

• Long strings of numbers or random characters

• Special characters or symbols

• Capital letters

• Stop words like “and,” “the,” “of” (when unnecessary)

Poor Example:
/page-id-3482-final-v2

Page Titles and Headings (Quick Overview)

• Each page should have one clear title

• Use headings (H1, H2, H3) to organize content

• Headings should describe what the section is about

Clear headings improve readability and SEO.

SEO Tips for Content Editors

• Write for people first, search engines second

• Use clear, descriptive titles

• Avoid duplicate content

• Keep pages focused on one main topic

• Update content periodically when information changes

Final Notes

SEO works best when it’s built into your content process from the beginning. Clean structure, clear slugs, and organized content go a long way toward improving visibility.

Even small SEO improvements can have a meaningful impact over time.