Understanding SEO For Beginners (The Basics)

Understanding SEO For Beginners: The Basics
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As a beginner in an online business, you may be wondering about SEO. I know the sound of it may feel a bit intimidating.

This article is understanding SEO for beginners and also for those who want to refresh themselves in understanding the basics of SEO.

Do you need to be tech-savvy to understand all about SEO?

For a start, let me tell you that SEO is something not difficult to understand.

I will tell you what SEO is and how does it work.

You will also know how you can start optimizing your website even if you are just a newbie in this business.

Understanding SEO For Beginners: The Basics

What Is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of optimizing your website to get organic and free traffic from the search engine results page (SERP). In other words, SEO is the process of making sure that your article or your website can get to the top rankings in the search engines., such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others.

The reason being is to get more traffic or visitors to your website, and hopefully will generate a lot of revenue as a result.

You can actually accomplish this and be successful even if you are just a beginner. You just make sure to know the basics and this will give you an incredible, long term opportunity with SEO.

How Does SEO Work?

Though search engine optimization sounds so complex, you have to understand the different factors that will impact your ranking. The good thing, the basic process is not at all difficult to understand.

Search engines, like Google, want to provide the best service to their users. The search engines make sure that they deliver not only high quality but also relevant to what the searchers are looking for.

So, what the search engine does is, it will scan, or crawl, different websites to understand what it is all about. The search engine will also scan the site to determine its relevance and how easy to navigate and read.

That is why, for us website builders, we want to make sure we have good quality contents and website that is user-friendly. Not only those, of course, but there are also still other factors that are essential to know.

Knowing these basic essentials of SEO will benefit your online business. Once you know these, you can improve your SEO and expand your visibility on the search engines. These will eventually reach and increase your chances of bringing in more targeted organic traffic.

Watch this FREE LESSON

on “Getting Your Website Ready For SEO”

Understanding SEO For Beginners: The Basics

Here Are the SEO Basic Essentials:

1.  Content Writing

Writing very good content (post or article) is the most effective way search engines will give good rankings and help reach your targeted audience.

The more quality and relevant content pieces you have on your site, the more likely search engines will rank your pages higher on the search engine results page (SERP). In addition to this, the more engaging and effective content you have on your website, the more likely your visitors will spend more time on your article.

So, basically, your content should be relevant, has quality, engaging, and well-structured.

How do you start to write good contents?

By making sure you choose first the right keywords. These keywords are used by the searchers and your content will be the answer to these questions. When you create your content around these keywords and phrases, you will improve your chances of ranking higher in the search engines.

You can achieve this by using a keyword research tool. I have been using one of the best keyword research tools. You can read about it HERE.

Make sure you place your keywords or phrases strategically within your posts. It is also important to avoid over-optimization. Sometimes, search engines will penalize your page if it attempts to use keywords too many times throughout your content.

I always consider placing my keywords at my title, in the first few paragraphs, and at the conclusion part.

One thing you have to consider also is to make sure your content is UNIQUE. It should be original not copy-paste at all.

Also, your content should be FRESH. This refers to how often you publish articles on your site. However, creating brand new content is not the only to keep your website`s posts fresh, you can also freshen it up by updating and rewriting them more effectively.

I know that creating good quality content takes time and resources, but it will be rewarding at the end.

2. On-Page SEO

On-page SEOs are those things you can do to your site for optimization purposes. These are things you have complete control over. In this article, I will point out the best you can do that can help you improve your search rankings:

Title Tags. This is where you can put what your page/article is about. It should be 50-70 characters which will include both your keywords and the focus of your content.

Meta Description. This is what your website is telling the search engines a short description of your article. This will help visitors better understand what the page is about and if it is relevant. Make sure it has your keyword and some important details about your content.

Sub-headings. Writing sub-headings will help visitors read your content easily, it is like organizing your thoughts. Doing this will help improve your SEO. You can use H1, H2, and H3 tags.

Internal Links. These are links you place inside your contents about your other posts. Building internal links, or hyperlinks can help search engines know more about your site.

ALT Tags or Image Name. Tagging the images that you use in your website within your blog content by using your keywords or phrases will help improve your rankings in the search engines.

Site map. This is one page of your website where you can structure your contents. It is like creating a table of contents. This will help your site`s crawlability and give your search engines a better understanding of your content.

3. Off-Page SEO

The off-page SEO`s are those factors that you do outside of your website. It is more of promoting and building your authority on your online business. If you know how to improve these, it can help you get rankings for your site in the search engines.

Though you do not have direct control over what happens outside of your website, you can increase your chances of improving off-page SEO by simple writing quality contents which others will find valuable. The more relevant your content is, the more likely others will be to link to your content.

Social Media. You can boost your traffic by leveraging social media. You can share your posts through this route. Also, if you find people asking for questions (like Quora), you can share your post if that post is the answer to the question.

Authority and Trust. This is becoming an increasingly important factor in a website`s ranking. This is how a search engine determines whether you have a legitimate site that visitors can trust. One of the best ways to improve trust is by building quality backlinks from sites that have authority.

LEARN MORE HERE:  WHAT IS AN AUTHORITY SITE?

In Conclusion,

Now you have an understanding what an SEO means and how it works, you can now work to make changes to your site in order to improve your SEO and boost your rankings on the search engine results page.

Knowing how to SEO works is a long term traffic opportunity that can help your online business.

As more people come online and more people spend time online, they are continually searching for things at a higher rate than ever.

The average person performs over 130 searches per month in Google, and do you know that Google is currently getting over 3.5 Billion searches a day. We are only talking about Google.

You can definitely use that possible amount of traffic to capture the right audience and create an income for you.

Remember, it is going to be your job to get these people through the use of the right keywords that they enter in the search engines, build trust through helping them, and make good recommendations whatever products you are promoting.

Keep also in mind that search engine optimization takes time to work its magic. Hardly you will experience the benefits of SEO overnight. Honestly, it may take a few months to enjoy the results of your hard work.

However, if you follow the correct SEO practices by creating quality content that is focused on helping people is the best way to build a sustainable online business that will bring you great profits in the future.

I hope this article has helped you understand SEO. I also started as a newbie and know nothing about building my own website. I all learned this in a program that I am until now is a member.

I invite you to join my community and learn right away building your own online business.

If you have any thoughts about this article, feel free to leave a comment.

All the best!

9 Comments on “Understanding SEO For Beginners (The Basics)”

  1. Hi Hanna,

    Thanks for the post! As someone who is woefully bad at SEO, it’s always good to read more about it. I always find myself having a tough time adding my keyphrase enough into an article without sounding awkward.

    On top of that, I don’t know where to get started for off-page SEO. I’ve considered searching Quora for relevant questions, but that seems like it would be incredibly time consuming and wouldn’t pay off.

    Do you have any thoughts on this? Would love to hear more.

    Thanks,

    Nick

    1. Hi Nick, thank you for your comment.

      It does take some practice to really form your keyphrase so it won`t sound awkward. For me, when I search for a keyword or phrase, I always make it a point to choose what makes sense.  Have you used a keyword research tool before?  Try using Jaaxy.

      If you are not comfortable using Quora or any other forum sites, you can try using social media or even the Google search itself.

      I hope these answers to your queries. All the best!

  2. I did a lot of research on SEO in the past and now when I read your article I can see that there is always something new to learn. I have to work more on my off-page SEO in the future. Thanks for sharing that video as well. It’s a must watch!

  3. Hi ,

    This is a great post explaining the SEO basics. I try and follow all of these to the t. Although I have written quite a few posts and am ranked in the first page of some SE’s like yahoo, bing, and dogpile, I find my page no where in google. I have been trying to figure out any changes that I can make for this to change. This is great information for anyone that wants to help increase traffic to their site.

    1. Hi Justin, thank you for sharing your thoughts about this article. If you have been ranked in other search engines, eventually, you will be ranked at Google as well. Sometimes, Google is still looking into other aspects such as authority and consistency. Make sure you post regularly, and Google finally will find you.
      All the best!

  4. Hi Hanna thank you for this detailed article on SEO.

    I have a blog myself so this is useful information for me my visitors are growing SLOWLY so hopefully, I can use some of your tips to give my site a real boost.

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