A BEGINNERS’S GUIDE FOR SEO
Want to wrap your head
around SEO, but getting afraid off by technical terms and complex
concepts? This friendly blog walks you through everything you need to know about
SEO.
If you are a new one with
confused concepts of SEO just like I use to be ,Then, just sit back and relax. your confusions are going to vanish.
After reading this blog, you will get
some idea and a path to move on, on your SEO journey.
So, let’s start with the first and
the most important question.
What is SEO and How it Works?
SEO (“search engine optimization”) is called the process of getting
traffic from the “free” “organic” or “natural” search results on
search engines.
SEO is all about understanding what people are searching for
online, the answers they are seeking, the words they’re using and the type of
content they wish to consume. Knowing the answers of all these questions will allow
you to connect to the people who are searching online for the solutions you
offer. SEO helps to make it easy for consumers to find products and
services online.
It mainly depends on:
- The content on a website
- Structure
- Links to a website
We just need to develop above
things in a way, a search engine can understand better.
But remember! While
doing SEO to make our site search engine friendly, we should never
ever forget the concerns of our viewers.
I hope, now your concept about SEO is a
little bit clear.
So, let’s move on with our next
question.
Why Do I Need To Do SEO?
Search engines are the biggest and
best sources of web traffic. You may already know the major ones, which are:
- Google
- Bing
- Yahoo
For sure, social media platforms
like Face book, Twitter and Instagram can generate a bunch of visitors to your
website.
But when it comes to the primary
source, it’s always a search engine. Because a new user will always open Google
to browse anything.
Same stands true for regular
internet users, whenever they wanna search anything like any type of services,
products or even any information.
Another reason which is making
the search engines unique is that they provide highly targeted traffic.
What happens if we don’t do SEO according to Search Engine / Google SEO
Guidelines?
Search engines might not be able to
find our site. In short, we’ll not be getting any traffic.
If we are not doing proper SEO by
ignoring users’ search queries, our websites will get ignored by search engines
as well.
Rightly done SEO can give you
thousands of viewers while some wrong moves can disappear your website from top
search engine result pages leaving you with almost zero traffic.
Okay, let’s move to the next topic.
Black Hat V/s White Hat
Before diving into the field of
SEO you should be aware of White Hat & Black Hat SEO.
Here is how these may be described:
Black Hat Strategies
·
Duplicate Content
·
Invisible text & stuffed contents
·
Re-directing the user to another site or page
·
Links from sites with non relevant content
White Hat Strategies
·
Relevant content
·
Well-labelled images
·
Relevant links
·
Complete sentences with good spelling & grammar
Just remember we will always focus
on white hat SEO.
Before moving on further, below are
the major divisions of SEO:
- Keyword Research
- On Page SEO
- Off Page SEO
Keyword Research
SEO is a game of Keywords & this
is the most important one in SEO.
Exact wordings of a user are called
keywords. You must be aware of the keywords related to your topic if you want
to be successful in SEO.
Keyword Research is all about
finding the intentions of the users to use search engines. What
exactly users are searching for your topic, are your keywords.
It gives you an opportunity to know
your targeted audience in a better way.
You need to do proper research to
find valuable keywords related to your topic before starting your website.
On Page
SEO
On Page SEO means everything that are displayed on the web page.
In On Page SEO, you need to optimize your website’s page and
posts,tags, etc. for search engines.
In Short “Optimizing Content for Search Engine”..
It covers a lot of things, so let’s break this into larger
branches.
1. Content
You might have heard that famous quote about content that: “Content is the King”
Do you know that Google is the biggest search engine! I mean
sure you do, and no one even needs to ask that.
Google’s first priority is to provide its users with top
quality content with relevant information available on the web.
So, try to write long and informative content that makes best
user experience and perfectly optimized for the search engines.
While
writing your content, don’t ever forget to fix your keyword research in the
best possible and natural looking way.
2. Website Speed
Yes! Website Loading Speed matters a lot! Have you ever
heard about Dwell time?
No! Let me tell you.
Dwell time is indeed an important search engine ranking
factor. It is the duration for how long a user stays on your site after
clicking on it.
When a user searches for something and your website appears
on search engine result page (SERP).
Then that user opens your site. What if that website is
taking too long to open! What would you do? Wait…! No way.
You will close the tab and move to the second site…
And here is how Dwell time
of the first website gets destroyed. Results..Ranking down!!
Off Page SEO
Off-page SEO refers to the activities you can perform outside the
boundaries of your website. The most important are:
· Link Building
Link building is the most popular and effective off-Page technique. Basically by building external links to your website, you are trying to assemble as many ‘votes’ as you can.
For example, if someone likes this blog and references it
from his/her website or something else, then this is like telling search
engines that this page has good information.
·
Social
Media Marketing
Social media marketing or SMM is a type of marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social
media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals.
It includes activities like posting text and images,
videos and other content that drives audience engagement as well as paid
social media advertising.
·
Social
Bookmarking
Have you established a vast social network? If yes! Then it
is awesome. Mention your website in your social profiles. This is called social
bookmarking. This is a great way to get links.
If you focus on,
1. Optimizing for the right keywords
2. Creating epic content
3. Building up your authority with high quality links
You’ll have the most important things under control and your
SEO is bound to improve as a result.
And one more thing!
While doing all these things, keep on learning and improving.
So that’s all...
I hope this beginner’s guide helped you to understand something
about SEO.
But some of you might be thinking that I have missed a lot of
information about SEO as not all the beginners only will read this guide. Am I right?
So if you have any comments or feedback you can share with
us!
And if you are more passionate about learning SEO & want to
build career in the field of SEO and Digital Marketing,