Beginners Guide to SEO
With
more and more people launching content on the web, SEO patterns have shifted a
long way ever since the start of search engines. To market something on the
internet is to increase visibility. This is best achieved through the
application of a set of techniques that adds up to SEO. Knowledge of SEO and
its implementation is compulsory to rank a post on Google's first page and if
possible at the top. Google ranks the sites based on over 200 factors. Out of
them, the majority are from outside the website that is off-page SEO. Some of
them account for on-page SEO and the rest constitute a vast range of technical
SEO.
The sphere of SEO is fast and dynamic. Applying outdated SEO techniques will carry off valuable time and effort leaving you frustrated. So, you must remain updated with the latest SEO tools and techniques. Depending on the type of content, SEO techniques vary in number. This post will give you an overview of all the SEO tools and techniques.
Basically all search engines work in the same way performing three major functions
Crawling - Examine content, learn and analyse
Indexing - categorise each piece content
Ranking - decide which content is most useful to searchers
Rank on the basis of number of words on pages, number of websites linked and the uniqueness of the content. Among two similar content, the first posted will be ranked.
each search engine uses bot (robots) crawlers or spiders to make their way through the pages
What is SEO ?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of applying certain techniques so that your website or a piece of content
In the world of content writing the most important thing clients will demand is SEO. Now lets understand this SEO in simple terms. SEO helps your content to rank in Google’s first page. Now is the same thing for all the search engines. SEO means the steps that you will take to rank your content in top search engine results. There are many more SEO steps to done after writing a blog post or other forms of online content.
We can divide SEO into three categories - On Page SEO, Off Page SEO and Technical SEO
On Page SEO
After you have decided what to write the next important this is to optimize your content. In On Page SEO, we follow certain steps.
Checklist in case of On-Page SEO
- Place focus keywords and relevant keywords within the content including heading and sub headings.
- Meta description
- Backlinks
- Tags
- Sharing in social media
Keyword Research
Try to speak the language of your audience or customers while writing a content.
Whenever you search something in Google, you see three things -
Title of the article, Permalink and Meta Description
Google will check if your keyword is present in the title and meta description. The main keyword must be present in the title, meta description and permalink. For a standard article of 500 words, you choose three to four keywords. One of them will be the main and the others will be related keywords. Also use the main keyword in all the images of the post and the major heading of the post.
Minimum length of a post must be 500 words. Keep the title or the main heading in H1 tag. However, in blogger the outlook of these features are little different. The sub-headings must be written in H2 tag. If there are more number of sub-headings, you can use H2 twice or thrice and use H3 for others and if more number of sub-headings are to appear, you can use H4 or simply bold. In case of blogger you can use the title as major heading or a different heading but in WordPress, there is only one title as major heading. This help Google to determine that your post is a structured one. It's good if you can manage to put the main keyword once in each of the H2/H3 tags but that mustn't alter the readability of your content.
Any post has a general structure - An intro, body and conclusion or your opinion. To place keywords, intro and conclusion are the best positions. Place the main keyword in the intro (First 100 words) and the conclusion part (Last 100 words) of your content and in the body part, place both the main and the related keywords. Don't forget to place the main keyword in your first sentence of the post. You can make all the keywords bold, underline or italic for your own convenience.
Keyword Density is very important where 2% is the average density. This means, in a post of 500 words, minimum 5 to 7 keywords are enough. This means if you are using a total of 4 keywords ( 1 main + 3 related) then total keywords will be between 20 to 28. Don't repeat the main keyword more than 5 times. A keyword can have two to five words in general. There is no such limit. A keyword like "Sunday outing" is a short tail keyword and a keyword like "Sunday outing in Assam" is a long tail keyword. Flow of writing is equally important and it mustn't seem like you have put them forcefully.
In meta description, you have to write about the post content in sort. Use the main keyword in meta description. Meta description has word limit. Use the keywords in alt text and title text of the images. This is also one kind of SEO you shouldn't miss. If the image fails to load, then Alt text is displayed. Use the main keyword once in Alt text maintaining an optimum length. No keyword stuffing should be there. Don't use "image of" or "photo of" as Google already knows it's and image.
Snippet schema markup
Off Page SEO
These are the activities that take place away from your website so that it ranks. Link building is the major task in Off Page SEO. It is very essential that your site get links from high quality websites. This makes Google know who you are and what your website is about. Another most important task in Off Page SEO is sharing. Let us see the major off page SEO tasks.
Backlinks
If google can detect a number of backlinks to your websites then it becomes sure that your website contains great quality content. Otherwise why somebody will waste time over your content with links. These are simply like recommendations from people. Your content may be in-depth, fresh and of high quality but if there is no link pointing to it then google will find it difficult to make out the value your content can deliver.
Sharing on Social Media
Nowadays people all over the world use social media. Your content must appear in places where your audience are spending a lot of their time. You can automate your blog post on several social media platforms simultaneously. You can control the settings so that the post get shared to the relevant social media platforms only. You're sure to generate traffic for your sites. Almost every social media platforms has its own metrics to check the number of engagement, clicks and impressions and a host of other things.
Social Media Bookmarking
This is process of saving your webpage or post. There are various bookmarking sites like Pinterest,
Local SEO
When we think of local search ranking , the only name comes to our mind is Google My Business. Another important SEO that comes under this category is the citation.
Guest Post submision
Site: write for us
Image Submission
Document sharing
PDF PPT Video
Article submission in Forums
You can post your article against some questions.
In google article submission active forums.
Questions and Answers
Depends how much question and answers you score.
web 2.0 submission
Not much effective nowadays but you can use.
Customer reviews
Reviews are actually one kind of SEO that is often go unnoticed. You buy a product checking the best reviews. You install the app that has the best review. A positive customer feed helps you rank your site. Replying customers will add more in the ranking of your site.
Technical SEO
In technical SEO, we perform a series of tasks related to the technical side of the website in order to improve the ranking. Some of the major tasks that come under this category are - making the website to load fast, making Google crawl and understand the various pages of your website. But the process doesn't stop here. Google may find, crawl and index all your pages but still your site may not rank because a lot of other steps have to be assured. These are site's security, structured data, duplicate content, mobile friendliness etc.
Here, I have mentioned the important Technical SEO characteristics.
1. Faster Loading
Visitors nowadays are highly impatient and they seek websites that load very fast. In general a webpage must open with 3 seconds otherwise the visitors have a tendency to leave. You must apply themes or templates that are highly responsive and fast loading. You will also leave a website that is very slow and become traffic for another website which is fast right!
Google prefers pages that load fast. Google algorithms are aware of the fact that slow pages have less engagements. In 2022 speed of the website is definitely a ranking criteria for search engines.
2. Structure
Design or the look doesn't matter but the structure does. A flat minimal design allows google to crawl 100% of your pages. As a beginner, it should be ok on your part to have a simple but responsive design. Wherever possible try to give sorting according to option. There are online tools to preview your site structure. You can check the site overall SEO health with online tools and fix those issues.
Structure makes easy to crawl.
Robot texts
3. XML Sitemap
The next step is to tell google about your website. The best way to do that is to submit a sitemap.
In google search console you will frequently encounter indexing issues. This means your structure is not proper.
This will automatically let you know if any coverage issue occurs. You should submit separate sitemaps for various pages. Mere submission of sitemap will not make a big difference unless you
Now, submitting a sitemap is not the only thing that you do in google search console. You will get email notifications for each issue that arise relating to performance, coverage, mobile usability and
Your role will be fix those issues as directed by Google Search Console.
Broken Links
When you apply backlinks from other websites then if the website is off due to no reason then. You have to fix all the broken links. Otherwise the spam score of your website will increase. You must have encountered 404 error page. Your user lands on such a 404 error page and all your valuable energy is lost. So, at least on a periodical basis you fix all such broken links. Always give links from website that are genuine and original and have a long term vision.
Unfortunately there is at least one broken link in every website because website development is a continuous process. People make and break things. But to tackle this issue we have online tools that help us detecting these dead links.
So links are like a necessary evil. So, in Off page SEO carefully s
Lost links
Long post are seen to get more back links. A post might be 5000 words long, The logic behind is that it has covered everything about the chapter. So, there is no such formula to create an epic content.
You must put value to your content. One must say wow after going through the content. This can be some unique strategy that works, case study, rare or compiled stats, rare interview, tools or widget.
Always give links of your old posts in a new post. Bounce rate become low. so give internal links to related posts.
Outbound link
also called external link is the link of other relevant and trusted source. This helps google know about your niche and increase trust and quality.
Post related video use.
GSC inspect
In case you are receiving indexing issues you can check
Fix duplicate or thin content issues
There are online tools to
The same content should be there in each of the pages.
A question may arise in your mind what if other people copy your content. But that will be regarded as their duplicate content issues and you must remember this from today and no worries.
No index tag and category pages
For WordPress a blog, no indexing the tag and category pages is a good move as they may cause duplicate content issues.
Mobile Usability Issues
This is the age of smartphones. Majority of searches for your content will come from mobile users and if your site is not mobile friendly then you will not be able to get the desired results. The best way is to fix immediately whenever such issues arise.
If you are targeting other nation you can use this
This also solves a possible duplicate content issue. Google will tell that this content is meant for some other nations.
The Yoast SEO Plugin
This plugin is being widely used nowadays. It will dictate all the necessary SEO requirements from time to time with colorful indicators.
Advanced SEO
You may see brand name after the title ending but this has nothing to do with technical aspects of SEO. This is to done to increase traffic after ranking is already done for ecommerce websites.
Yes there is advanced SEO but basics concepts do not get changed. For a new website basics come first. The proper application of basic SEO is advanced SEO.
LSI keyword
These are found in bottom of the google page in bold format.
SEO tools
Surferseo is one such tools
Seo is your main keyword and lsi keyword will be course, Google, on page , types of etc.
Clean design that make easy reading is good.
Conclusion
As a beginner, you now know the overall SEO types. Now it's your turn to apply them one by one. So, basic understanding of on page off page and Technical SEO is vital for your success as a content writer or a blogger. If your goal is to rank your page, SEO is such a task which you can't skip. There is no substitute for SEO ypes as well. You have to apply each one of them.