SEO Guide for Beginners

SEO short for search engine optimization has taken a mammoth place in the digital world. The competition is so vast that you can’t grow your online presence without it.

If you’re a blogger, digital marketer or an entrepreneur whose business rely on the website traffic, then learning best SEO practices is the key.

It won’t only keep you ahead in the competition but also opens the doors of opportunities for you.

But you can’t learn SEO by reading a blog or a tutorial, self-practising is important. Plus, the Google Algorithm and SEO tactics keep on evolving so you have to keep up with the ever-changing practices.

In this blog, I’ll share the SEO Basics, which are essential before you start your SEO journey.

But Before you Start

My first advice to you is that don’t waste your money in doing SEO courses. You can opt for Google certification but taking admission in institutes to learn SEO specifically is only a waste of time and money.

With a plethora of tutorials available on the Internet and self-practising your knowledge, you’ll be able to pull out maximum results for your website. When you’re a beginner, you should practice to the core, that’s how you’ll improve and climb the ladder to success.

One more tip I’ll advise you is that when you’re done exploring SEO, switch to digital marketing as well. The experience of digital marketing coupled with SEO will improve your worth as a digital marketer.

Now, let’s start:

Introduction

SEO is a part of digital marketing. It’s the process of rushing traffic to your website through organic search results.

However, the process takes time. If you’re doing quality SEO then you’ve to show patience till you achieve the results. But remember there’s a massive difference between the SEO of 2012 and 2019.

In 2012, it was quite an easy job to create backlinks in bulk to rank your website on top of the search engines. Even plagiarized content and use of keyword in every sentence were enough to get the results. But now it’s no longer the same.

Things You Need to Understand While Performing SEO

Latest Trends

Which trends in 2019 will help you dominate the SERPS and earn revenue? Like in 2019, what your audience wants on your website? Text? Images? Or video? Trends keep on changing, you need to create user-friendly website rather than SEO friendly.

Google Algorithm

SEO works on the Google algorithm and on the basis of the algorithm websites rise and fall on SERP. In short, it’s a rule or process set by Google, which we have to follow to rank our website. Every year we see new Google algorithm update.

9 major Google algorithms are:

Latest Tools

There are many online website monitoring tools that you can use to perform SEO. Some of them are paid and some are free. Here are some of the latest and most used means of SEO

Audience Behaviour

No matter how much quality you put in your SEO, if you do it for the wrong audience, you won’t get the results. Know your business and the audience who are the best fit for your business. Study their demographics thoroughly and you’ll see how it will benefit your SEO.

Types of SEO

On-page SEO
Off-page SEO

On-Page SEO

On-page, SEO is the main part of SEO in which we optimize the website according to Google guidelines. It includes your website layout, meta tags, headings, internal links and image optimization.

Here’s what Google says about On-Page SEO

Title length should be no more than 70 characters.
Meta description length should be no more than 170 characters.
Images name (alt-text ) should not be blank and it should be keyword optimized.
Use primary keywords in the title, meta description and heading (H1, H2, H3).
Keyword density of the main keyword should not be more than 1%.
Website load time should not be more than 5 seconds.
The website should be mobile friendly and user-friendly.
You should include sitemap.xml and sitemap.html on your website.

And more..!

I’ll share more about on-page in my next article.

Note: On page SEO is considered as 70% of the SEO as compare to off-page SEO.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO (backlinking) considered as 30% of the SEO. It refers to creating quality backlinks on different websites.

Here’s how you can create backlinks

Profiling
Business listing
Guest posting
Web2.0
Forums
Q/A
Blog commenting

And so on….

I’ll share more off-page knowledge in my next article.

SEO is all about lead generation and getting business. It is not just being on top of Google and getting traffic. Traffic helps you to top the SERP but without business it’s useless.