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SEO tutorial for beginners: How to start with SEO?

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SEO tutorial for beginners: How to start with SEO?

SEO tutorial for beginners: How to start with SEO?
SEO tutorial for beginners: How to start with SEO?

If you have not started working around
SEO, it'd be best to start now. You need to have increased visibility on search engines if you want more clients to look out for you online. So, what moves should you make? How do you unlock the basics of SEO? Or how do you leverage SEO to achieve your website goals?

I am pretty sure that you have encountered Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Even if you have not, you will find out soon enough. It is a concept in psychology that ranks the basic human needs like food and security over advanced needs like prestige. The idea behind the concept of SEO is that it's impossible to meet the extended needs without meeting the basic needs first. Prestige doesn’t count without security, shelter, and food.

In this regard, we will leverage Maslow's hierarchy of needs to walk you through how to start with SEO. However, before anything else, let's look at what SEO is and why it is important.

What SEO is

SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. It is the process of boosting the quantity and quality of website conversion. SEO also helps to promote your brand via organic search engine results.

Search engine optimization is all about connecting with the common words that people research via the web. It boils down to the type of answers they want, the words they utilize, and the type of content they wish to view. Providing these answers will give you the luxury to collaborate with the people looking out for solutions on the search engines.

However, it is pertinent to note that it is one thing to know what your audience wants. It is another thing to present your content in a way that search engine crawlers can map them out and understand. A search engine crawler is a type of bot whose purpose is to garner content all across the web so that it can show up on search engine results. It is also known as a “spider.”

What is a Search Engine?

Search engines provide answers to questions that users ask.  They garner numerous pieces of content across the web. By doing so, search engines evaluate these contents to figure out the content that would probably answer your questions better.

How does it work?

Search engines search and arrange all available content on the web through a process known as crawling.  It doesn't matter the form in which these contents take. They may come in videos, PDFS, websites, and many others. Then search engines arrange the contents based on how they align with your query via a process known as “ranking.”

Note that Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo, and many others are common examples of search engines.  

Are Search Results Organic?

Of course, search results are organic and you acquire them through a proactive SEO. But you should keep it at the back of your mind that organic search results don’t cost a fee. They appear on the search engine results page due to factors such as relevance to the search query and other factors. Hence,  organic search results are not synonymous with search engine marketing.

How do you spot organic results?

We have all been there. Search engine results pages are also known as "SERPS." They comprise special snippets such as "People Also search" checkboxes and some image carousels.

For instance, if you search for "Mark Zuckerberg," you will see boxes that indicate other popular searches like Priscilla Chan, David Wehner, and Bill Gates. Nice, right?

It is important to note that there are various other search features. These features often come from IMDb, Wikipedia, and many others.

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 Why Is SEO Important for Individuals and Businesses?

Visibility

One of the most significant benefits of search engine optimization is increased visibility. It means that potential clients can find you when they explore the services you offer or the products you sell. Visibility works in tandem with ranking.

The point is that the more you rank on a search engine result page, the more likely potential clients will notice you and visit your website. So, the more proactive your SEO efforts,  the more your ranking and the better your visibility.


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Internet Traffic

Internet traffic is one of the most important goals of SEO. Once your rankings and visibility increase, your traffic follows suit.

The Holy Grail for most digital marketers and businesses is the featured snippet. You will see it above the first-ranked website link. It is typically content that comes from the landing page on a website. The content provides solutions to a query that people are searching for. It can boost your website traffic as a significant number of people click it.

So if you want more traffic and leads, it would help to utilize SEO best practices that will help you to acquire the first five positions. Perhaps, your website can reach the first position.

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Authority

Website authority is also of paramount importance to search engines. It's becoming a significant phenomenon among internet users. In any case, authority refers to the assertion that you have a credible, relevant, and top-notch website.  It also means that your webpage generates and communicates value.

Page authority scores stretch from 1 to 100. The higher the digit, the more authority your website has. 

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How do you know your page authority rating?

It is straightforward. You can assess your page authority rating by leveraging tools like Moz, Prepostseo.com, bulkdachecker, and many others. They show how your website ranks in search engines.  Let's look at these PA tools to estimate the page authority of a webpage.

Content Quality

One of the most important ways in which page authority rating tools assess your website is content quality. For instance, Moz examines this factor before revealing the page authority score of your webpage.

Content quality refers to the extent of insight and information in a piece of content. It is beyond the type of information you provide. Hence, it comprises the formatting styles, keywords, originality, external links, internal links, readability scores, and grammatical accuracy.

How well your content does communicate value? Content quality provides an answer to this question.

·         Rank

The rank factor reveals the strength of high-quality external links of a webpage.

A top-notch backlink can water down numerous valueless backlinks.

An excellent backlink is better than having numerous poor-quality website links. 

It follows that PA tools consider the ranking factor before generating the PA score.

·         Trust

The trust factor reveals the relevance of external links provided in a webpage. It evaluates how a webpage's connected to numerous credible websites.  Some of the common reputed websites are .gov and .edu.

·         Social Signals

The social signals play a significant role in analyzing the page authority score as well as content quality.

Hence, a post or image that has received numerous likes, shares, and comments on social media channels must contain top-notch content.

Moz often utilizes social signals to estimate the page authority of a website.

·         Competitive analysis

The competitive analysis factor allows businesses and individuals to see how other industry players compete for similar keywords. 

You can see some significant metrics that describe your competitor’s behavior.

Better Visitor Experience

Another advantage of SEO is that it enhances the usability of your webpage. Since proactive SEO efforts often come with fantastic content, it creates a stimulating customer experience.

For instance, when you create a user-friendly website, both mobile users as well users using a desktop can quickly access it. In the same way, you will drive more visitors to your webpage when you boost your page load speed. Clients expect that your website loads within the shortest possible time. The faster the load time, the more your visitors remain on your page. The slower the page load time, the more your visitors leave your page.

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SEO Basics: How to Start it

Now that we have walked you through the meaning of SEO and its importance, let’s dive into its marketing basics. Getting a hang of SEO is one thing. Putting what you have learned into action is another thing. It is not what you can do this minute and anticipates results in the next few hours. That's impossible!  SEO requires an everyday action with a long-term value in mind.

Let’s look at how to get started with SEO and how to keep going.

Content Quality

I bet you are familiar with the phrase “content is king.” Bill Gates made this statement some years ago and it’s far from falsity.

Do you know why?

It is because most internet users are excited when they encounter results that match their needs and expectations. They become happier when the results exceed their expectations.

When you search “easy homemade aloe vera gel recipe,” Google invests all its efforts to deliver the best results on the internet.

Google doesn’t provide a lazy option or show you various beauty stores for aloe vera gels. It would rather direct you to the most significant pieces of content.

It means that your top goal for excellent SEO optimization is to create excellent content.

But that's not enough. You need to make a lot of effort to pull it off.  Excellent results come with hard work. As the best marketing strategies won't help you to sell a poor-quality product, great SEO efforts do not count without high-quality content.

Let’s explore a few tips that can help you to catch the attention of Google and users with your content.

·         Know what target users want

One of the most significant tips that can aid your content journey is finding out the intentions of your target users. Ask the following question. What do target users intend to achieve when they click through your website?

·         Create a Client persona

Knowing your users' intentions is not enough. It would help to know who they are. You should know what they like, what they hate, and why they do what they do.

·         Split your text

Most users pay little attention to what they read. So a long line of text doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to divide your contents and place some headers above them. It would help to spice them up with nice images and memes.

·         Make it actionable

Nothing is frustrating than scanning through a piece of content and not solving a problem. While you need to create incisive content, it needs to provide solutions to the following problem. Will the reader find the solution he needs when they finish reading the content?

Keywords

Over the past few years, keywords were the only SEO tactic that counted. Numerous techniques like content have invaded the space but that doesn’t mean that keywords aren’t still significant. The thing is that these days, excellent usage of keywords takes a forest. You need to choose them well, research them well and judiciously use them to get the best out of them.

So what are keywords? They are words that users use to search digital content. In many cases, businesses can leverage them to connect with potential customers who are exploring their products and services.

Let’s look at two tips that can help you to choose the right keywords.

·         Leverage Keyword Research Tools

Do you happen to know? You need to right tools to pull off relevant keywords. Keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner and Long Tail Pro will offer insights and depth into the current behavior of other industry players. That is to say, you can find out trending keywords and the ones that suit your content. This way, things become easier for you.

·         Research competitors

One of the sure-fire ways to carry out keyword research is to find out the activities of your competitors and imitate them. If a competitor ranks first in your keyword research, utilize your keyword research tool. After that, enter their URL and look out for the kind of keywords they leverage.

Domestic SEO

These days, various brands leverage a domestic SEO. It is domestic because it has local intent.

For instance, say you own a bar, then domestic SEO would ensure that when people in your place look for the best bars in your area, they will encounter your website.

Domestic SEO leverages SEO best practices such as carving out pages for your brand on Google Maps.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing  (SEM) is a form of online marketing that involves the promotion of web pages by boosting their visibility in search engine ranking via paid advertising.

For instance, some brands often pay for their campaigns to appear alongside search results. Search engine marketing also involves things like social media campaigns, Google shopping ads, and many others.

Although SEM is not a popular tactic in SEO, it plays a significant role in helping businesses to generate more leads.

Conclusion

I hope that you have picked one or two things from this guide because it has a lot to offer. It would help to make it a point of reference as you survey the SEO marketing world. The most significant thing to note is that there are no escape routes in these basics. You need to know them and improve with them.

Author Bio

Eun Rockwell is a blogger and academic writer from the UK who works with pro essay writer.   She likes trying new subjects and is always focused on proving her worth as a writer in new and challenging writing areas. Her hobbies are reading books and traveling. You can reach her via Twitter @rockwell_eun_.

 

 

 

 

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