What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
Kevin Ocasio
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners This blog post is all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a term often mentioned by every marketer who dreams to be at the top of Google search results. Before becoming an SEO expert, anyone has to begin with the basics of SEO. What is SEO? How can it impact the business that you’re building? Read on and find out right now.
What Is SEO? SEO or Search Engine Optimization refers to a set of practices that help a website show up in the organic search results of a search engine. In the simplest terms, SEO is about optimizing your blog so that a search engine will show it to web visitors each time they look for online information. For instance, I’m a web visitor looking for marketing courses online. When I type in “marketing courses,” Google shows me the most relevant results. SEO only concerns itself with organic search results. Paid advertising results do not refer to SEO. Here is a short introductory video about SEO:
Why Do You Need SEO For Your Business Blog? Why does your business blog need to invest in Search Engine Optimization?
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners No matter the size and nature of your business, you need SEO simply because it brings you success. As a small business owner, you can do SEO at the comfort of your home and reach a worldwide audience. 1. SEO gets you a high RO I. SEO can provide you with massive return on investment. Your visitors reach your site because you provide them with what they are looking for. The only thing you have to do is to prove to them that without your product, their lives would be incomplete. Do it by creating great blog content. 2. SEO positions you in front of your potential custom ers. If you want to expand your customer base and be found by people who need your products, invest in SEO. You will be able to maximize the potential of your website by focusing on some ranking factors that you have full control of. When your website receives a higher ranking, more people will find you and trust you. You get to build a strong online brand presence. 3. SEO is cost-effective. SEO is not just for huge brands and corporations. Small business owners like you can compete against popular brands without relying too much on paid methods like PPC advertising.
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners Mike Moran, an expert in digital marketing, quotes: ” Every website needs to focus on SEO, because organic search is the cheapest way to attract visitors to your site.” Aside from the fact that SEO is cost-effective, it brings you real results that last.
What Is A Search Engine Algorithm And How Does It Affect Your Visibility Online? A search engine algorithm is a search engine’s set of rules that determine how your website will be ranked. Think of a search engine algorithm as a criteria or checklist that helps a search engine evaluate whether your blog content deserves to be placed on a search engine results page. Algorithms of search engines will remain a big mystery. Google changes and updates its search algorithm from time to time to make sure that spammy websites don’t rank.
SEO Ranking Factors That You Should Focus On Even though we do not know everything about a search engine’s algorithm, there are factors that are common to all search engines that marketers must pay attention to. You will find useful search engine optimization tips in each ranking factor that I mention. These tactics will help you stay on top of the game.
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners 1. Keywords Keywords are important in SEO. Keywords are words that people enter into a search engine when looking for information online. Every part of your blog will be checked for relevant keywords that people are often using. Use the right keywords for your blog to help you rank better in search engines. You’ll be able to find the right keywords to use by doing keyword research. Where you place your keywords is a ranking factor too. Take a look at the image below from Buffer Social to see where relevant keywords should be placed:
The right keywords should be used in the following areas :
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners Site URL Page titles File names of your images The body of your content (articles or blog posts that you create) H1 nd H2 page headings Image alt attributes Bold and italic text 2. Inbound And O utbound Links Inbound links are hyperlinks that enter your site from another site. An inbound link happens when someone creating content for another site has linked the content to yours because the person finds your content interesting and valuable. Outbound links are hyperlinks in a piece of content which when clicked, take you to the content of other sites. This happens when you link to other sites because they have articles, videos, or pictures that are relevant to your content. Inbound links play a huge role in improving your SEO. When high-quality sites link to yours, this allows the search engine to better understand your site as its search engine “spiders” or “crawlers” examine (“crawls”) your content through the links that are created.
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners It would help to think of the web as a huge subway map with many stops. These stops are sites that are connected by links. The search engine spiders would be making frequent stops to assess a website before reaching another website via the link that connects them! When building links to optimize yourself for search engines and people, remember to link to good websites. These are sites that are highly relevant and authoritative. Bad neighbors influence your reputation in a negative way. They harm your rankings. If you are a bad neighbor because your site is spammy (cluttered with ads, having broken links, etc.) you harm other sites too. 3. Length And Q uality O f Content According to Positionly, the length and quality of your content are factors that impact your rankings. Google loves long blog posts. The longer your blog post is, the more it covers important knowledge. Here are some other things you can do to ensure that you produce great content every time: Avoid wrong spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Write about topics that benefit readers and solve their day-to-day problems. Structure your post properly. It should have an introduction, body, and conclusion. What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners Break up your article into short paragraphs with headings and sub headings. Include images or videos that convey your ideas well. If you manage a WordPress site, you may want to use an SEO plugin that will help you create an SEO-friendly blog post in real-time. I recommend you use Yoast SEO. 4. Content Updates Do you update your blog with fresh content? When you publish a new blog post at least once or twice a week, you allow Google’s spiders to often crawl your site. This increases the chances for Google and your audience to see you as a resource that is authoritative and trustworthy. Moreover, keeping your blog updated drives repeat traffic. Repeat traffic means higher chances for sales to occur. 5. Responsive Design (Mobile-Friendliness) Take a good look at the infographic from Smart Insights below: The infographic reveals that more people are using handheld devices to look for information online. Google recommends that you use a web design that adapts to different mobile devices. This allows Google to crawl your site efficiently so you will rank better in Google’s search engine results pages. What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners In addition, responsive web design provides pleasurable experiences for your visitors that will keep them coming! If you want my suggestion for a service that offers fully responsive themes (and guarantees a fast-loading site), I recommend MyThemeShop. 6. Dom ain History Are you the first user of your domain? If not, has your domain performed poorly in the past? If your domain has been in trouble in the past because of spammy content and low-quality inbound links, it will have a negative impact on your future rankings. A bad domain history gives Google a negative impression about your website’s overall performance. Google remembers everything. The solution? Get a brand new domain and build SEO using good techniques.
Final Thoughts SEO lets you experience long-term growth, that is for sure. To bring in the best results, you need to follow the right SEO practices. You will be better off doing that instead of trying to decipher a search engine’s algorithm to fool results. Shady methods will get you penalized. Remember to optim ize your blog not only for search engines but also for people.
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners Did you enjoy reading this post? If you have any questions or m ore ideas to share, feel free to speak your m ind!
What Is SEO? A Simple Guide To SEO For Beginners