SEO Basics Guide: The SEO For Beginners
It does not matter if you are an individual running blog or a company operating website for better reach/sales. SEO plays a great role in helping you create a win-win situation.
Every single month more than 75 million blog posts get published. Out of over 2 billion sites on the internet, 600 million are blogs. Now you have a clear idea if you don’t focus on SEO, you will get lost in the sea of blogs and blog posts.
This SEO Basics Guide will help you develop a strong knowledge of every aspect of SEO for beginners to do good in search results. Sounds exciting? Keep reading!
What is Search Engine Optimization for Beginners? Why Focus on SEO?
SEO/Search Engine Optimization is a process that increases your visibility in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). It is especially helpful if you are a beginner or novice in the market. Wondering why to pay attention to SEO? Consider the following perks:
- SEO helps you generate huge organic traffic
- Helps strengthen brand presence
- You can effectively beat your competitors
- Your customer trusts your services
- Increase your professional reputation
- Caters to convenient website usage
- Improve branding activities
- Support Marketing campaigns
Types of SEO for Beginners
There are two main types of SEO for beginners which you need to consider in the long run. These types are:
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
Each of the types above has key elements. Let’s discuss each aspect in detail:
On-Page SEO Basics Guide
The term On-Page in an On-Page SEO means you must carry out all SEO activities on a website page. Things which contribute to better On-Page SEO include:
- Keyword Research and Selection
- External and Internal Linking
- Content Quality and Value
- Keyword Insertion: SEO for beginners
- Image Optimization
1. Keyword Research and Selection
The first thing which highly contributes to On-Page SEO is keyword research and selection. You can use free or paid tools at your convenience to research keywords. Some free and paid tools include:
- Ubersuggest (free),
- Ahref (paid),
- Semrush(paid),
- io (paid),
- Google Keyword Planner (free),
- Answer the public (free)
- Google SERPs (free)
These tools are highly authentic for SEO for beginners when it comes to keyword research. You can rely on these tools. One thing you need to pay attention to is while selecting keywords, consider the following things:
For a new website or beginners:
- Select keywords with difficulty 0 up to 30
- The target for higher search volume
- Better target longtail keywords
For old and highly ranked websites:
- Select keywords with difficulty 0 up to 60
- The target for higher search volume
- Can Target long or short keywords
Select at least one main keyword and four secondary relevant keywords. Arrange the keywords as per search volume and difficulty for your convenience. Please note the primary keyword should have the highest search volume and lowest difficulty among other keywords. While selecting keywords, also pay attention to changes in search volume over the last three months or a specific period.
2. External and Internal Linking
Linking plays a great role in SEO for beginners, especially for beginners. While linking, make sure the link you choose are highly relevant to the content you are pointing out. If you are linking to the content without considering relevancy
Internal links take the reader to your website’s pages, while external links take the readers to other websites. If you incorporate high-quality links, then it is a better chance of achieving a high ranking.
3. Content Quality and Value
Suppose you are rewriting the content of the top 10 web pages on the SERPs. This will not help you achieve good SEO because you duplicate the content. Brainstorm your headings/subheadings and avoid copy-pasting others’ content. It is a key aspect in SEO for beginners.
These days ChatGPT or other AI content tools such as Copy.ai, Jasper, Copysmith, and many more are on the rise. Do not use the content of these tools on your blog or website. This will prevent you from getting Google AdSense approval if you are a blogger. Search engine crawls also do not crawl the AI content in most cases.
Create content (on the topic) about which you have sufficient experience and in-depth knowledge. Create value. Your content should compel the reader to share or like or comment. Creating value will boost the duration the reader or user stays on a particular webpage. Boost in staying duration help Google recognize that you are creating highly valuable content. This way, it increases your webpage ranking.
Please Note: Add the keywords throughout the article naturally. Do not stuff. The readers hate keyword stuffing and irrelevant keyword insertion.
4. Keyword Insertion: SEO for beginners
When it comes to the insertion of keywords, take note of these things:
- Ensure to include the keywords in titles, meta descriptions, heading 1, heading 2, or heading three at least once.
- Do not exceed the keyword density. You can use this tool to ensure the optimum thickness of the keywords.
- Include the Primary keyword in the title once and keep it under 10 words. Do this as well for H1. Make sure not to stuff the keywords.
- In the URL, include the main keyword or primary keyword. Suppose your main keyword is “Canva Affiliate Program”. Add it in the URL in this format “Canva-Affiliate-Program”.
- Make sure to add the primary keywords throughout to avoid exceeding 0.9% of the content. Also, don’t forget to insert the primary keyword in the first and last paragraphs.
- In the end, keep the meta description under 18 words and insert the primary keyword once. This is an incredible hack for SEO for beginners.
5. Image Optimization
A lot of traffic reaches your blog or web pages through the images. Therefore, ignoring them may lead you to lose a lot of organic traffic. You can avoid that by optimizing your images. While adding images, note down the following considerable:
- Do not copy and paste others’ images into your content
- You can personalise other images through image editing apps like Canva or Photoshop.
- Every website theme has specific image requirements on sizing. Make sure to use a size compatible with your website or WordPress Theme.
- One thing not to forget is to reduce the image size without reducing the quality. For this, you can use webp (image format) or jpeg. This specially aids in SEO for beginners.
- Next, add the primary keyword in the image name, title, inside image, and alt text. This will help people reach your website through images.
Off-Page SEO Basics Guide
Unlike on-page SEO, off-page SEO has nothing to do with your site page or blog page content. It simply takes place off of the web pages. The key elements are:
- Improve blog loading speed
- Social Media Utilization
- Guest Posting
- Fix Broken Links and Errors
- Advertising (Paid)
1. Improve Blog Loading Speed
The blog loading speed matters and should be your number one priority. The speed of a particular website depends on multiple things or elements. Image size, the code size of the theme or HTML size. You can use various plugins or adopt the necessary measures to reduce the loading speed of your website.
The blog loading speed matters because a higher speed leads you to a higher page rank on search engines. The option exists to use page speed insights by Google or other tools to check the loading speed of your website. These tools list the issues you can tweak or remove to boost ranking.
2. Social Media Utilization
Make relevant profiles or pages on different social media channels to divert traffic to your website. You can use the following social media:
You can mention your services, products or updates on these channels. Social media plays a big role in driving huge traffic to beginners.
3. Focus on Guest Posting
In off-page SEO, guest posting is highly notable. This is when a high DA (domain authority) or DR (domain rating) website links to your website. It ensures Google that your website features higher-quality content. For quality guest posting, you can contact relevant blogs and email them for link exchange.
4. Fix Broken Links
Broken links are the links which destroy your website’s SEO. They render Google retrieve that your website is old, add up the bounce rate, and reduce the visitor’s time on the page. Use Ahref or SEMrush to find the broken links on your webpage. Remove them to enjoy a higher ranking.
5. Advertising (Paid)
The last element in Off-Page SEO is advertising. You can reach your desired audience through paid advertising. Options exist to utilize Google ads, youtube ads, Facebook ads, quora ads, Instagram ads, LinkedIn ads, etc. Using these means you can reach your target audience and boost the SEO of your blog/website.
Final Words: SEO For Beginners
Hence, the above in-depth discussion proves that SEO is undeniable for any blogger or website owner. To stay and compete in the market, you need to adopt and ensure the following of all these elements. Let me know your thoughts about the “SEO Basics Guide” in the comment section.
Read More: Free SEO Tools For YouTube
