What No One Tells You About SEO for Beginners

What Is SEO?

As MOZ defines it, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic.

This also supports the exposure of your brand using organic search engine results.

It is a type of digital marketing that focuses on your inbound marketing strategy. It helps your clients find you in popular search engines, like Google.

Once you use it properly, it rewards your site with an improved PageRank and SERPs or search engine results pages.

Still, don’t get it? Let’s say for example you want to get your online portfolio of services done by a professional web designer.

So, you’ll type “web designing in the Philippines.” Then, you’ll hit the search button.

Google will then try to make relevant sources of information regarding your search query.

After a few seconds, you’ll see links about nearby web designing companies, as well as their contact information, business hours, and directions. That’s an entire SEO activity.

The websites that line up in the results pages are the ones with the most effective SEO strategy.

Others might invest in a local SEO keyword, but it’s a matter of who used the keyword better as reported by LYFE marketing.

So How Do You Successfully Optimize Your Website for Search Engines?

If you’re just beginning or you only have limited knowledge of SEO work, this article may be useful to you. You’re going to find out some basic SEO practices. Here are they are:

1. Stay updated  with latest trends

The general rule of thumb in doing SEO is to make all the pages readable. You also need to structure it properly for the benefit of your readers.

Well, this is the foundation of the bigger picture.

You need to stay updated with SEO algorithm updates.

You can read blogs from Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land for the latest happenings in the search engine world.

You may also follow Danny Sullivan and John Mueller on Twitter for instant updates. They work for the world’s search engine giant.

They’re the best guys out there who can confirm and answer your questions about algorithm changes.

So like any other job, make sure to do your research!

2. Learn the most important ranking factors

As you’ve read from tip no. 1, you should also read the guidelines provided in every change you’re going to do.

Might as well, be good at implementing changes if you want to rank up.

Google claims they do not attack a specific website when they are doing core updates to its platform.

This is why they suggest you should provide better content and ensure that you’re not keyword stuffing.

There are penalties if you do not follow the proper formatting and structuring of articles.

If you want to make sure that you know what to commit, you must start ensuring the appearance of your site content.

You can join groups and forums that are tackling every single update on the platform.

They will give you tips on how to recover from low SERPs.

3. Know how users search

Never underestimate the power of user behavior in searches. They can make or break your goal to top the results pages.

Pro-Tip: Use keyword testing and understand the search intent of people.

Short keywords with the name of the location is a thing of yesterday. Nowadays, the priority is to answer long keywords typed on the platform.

This brings us to make in-depth research on how users do their interaction with the search engine.

The BERT update last October 2019 aimed to resolve that issue of dynamism rather than by assumptions.

When implementing changes, have a conversational mix in your keyword planning.

4. Start optimizing the site for mobile

2019 proved to be a year of mobile domination. According to Search Engine Watch, people are spending more time on their phones every year.

This needs a new SEO strategy to focus on mobile optimization more than ever.

If you want to know how fast your website loads in mobile phones, you can use the Page Insights feature found in the Google Search Console.

Make sure you’re currently logged in using the email address of your website.

Plus, you have to study how mobile users differ from their desktop counterparts.

Imagine a working person hurrying for work. He or she only wants to ensure that he gets quick research of information for his/her upcoming report.

This type of individual wants a quick answer to any question.

If your page loads slower than the suggested optimized time on a mobile phone, you’ll surely lose a wonderful opportunity.

5. Prioritize building UX

Comfort in accessing and learning the contents on your website is another goal you should achieve.

The user experience accounts for most web traffic these days as Google evolves.

UX paired with relevant yet quality content will help you thrive in this competitive world.

People like to use the website when it’s intuitive to suit their needs.

One does not work without the other.

SEO experts from Proweaver can check your website if it has the balance it needs to invite readers to stay.

They will run tests on your bounce rates and compare it with the time spent on your site.

This data is also compared with the load speeds of your site.

6. Understand how voice search works

According to ComScore, a research company, 50% of all searches in 2020 will come in voice searches.

You should leverage on this to have a searchable website when someone likes to know about a product.

This brings us back to the goal of answering conversational questions for the users.

This is why you should focus on the differences found between the voice commands and texts.

At this early stage, you must learn how consumers think.

In return, you’ll know how to answer possible questions they might throw to the virtual assistants.

7. Discover the link between social media and SEO

To increase the result for your online presence, social media plays a special role.

Some networks, such as Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter, have more chances to show up on the first page of search results.

Social networks are now indexed to aid in helping people who are in a hurry to search for the credibility of a business.

Of course, it signifies that you should have the omnipresent online profile to ensure you can lead people back to your website.

Internet habits have been evolving ever since the introduction of social media.

YouTube and Pinterest became the go-to site for those who want to see visual searches and do-it-yourself info.

Meanwhile, Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook are social networks that help people looking for information about people, events, and businesses.

8. Analyze existing search traffic

Want to learn how to improve your SEO performance? Check your website search traffic.

You can do this by accessing Google Analytics.

From there, you check which among the posts received the most visits and longest page views.

It can give you an idea of what topics you can experiment with more to attract more readers.

To access this data in analytics, follow these steps:

1. Go to analytics.google.com.
2. Login using the email connected to your website.
3. Click on the “Behavior” button. Then, click “Overview” below it.
4. Set the date on the upper right corner.
5. Below the line graph shown in the dashboard, you’ll see the data about each page or post-performance.

 

You also need to know which keyword has helped in the growth of your traffic.

With this, you will need to access the Google Search Console. Here are the steps:

1. Go to search.google.com/search-console/about.
2. Click the “Start Now” button, then log in using the email connected to your website.
3. Click on the “Performance” button.
4. Hover down over the line graph on the dashboard. You’ll see the word “Queries.” Click on this.
5. Look for the best keywords used by the searchers to access your website.

 

After seeing the queries, you can list down the top 10 keywords that contribute to the web traffic.

You can experiment on a new keyword and blog topic that surrounds it, too. This will eventually help you grow your traffic.

9. Write for humans, optimize for search engines

The last, but definitely, not least is to boost your content marketing strategy.

You must exert great effort in handling the topics you publish on your website.

When you choose the right topics that interest your market niche, you can expect growth and improved SEO performance.

Always remember to “write with the readers in mind.” Then, optimizing for the search engines comes second.

As Search Engine Watch suggests, you need to rank by using only the right-fit keywords for your readers.

This way, you can keep the content that remains engaging and interesting to the readers.

It’s not enough to have good content. You should also invest time in optimizing to reach high SERPs.

Pro-Tip: Do not fill your blog content with keywords. It looks spammy to the web crawlers. Find 1-2 keywords to fit in your content.

The goal is to balance the relevance of the content and the optimization needed for it.

Conclusion

After practicing these tips, you’ll soon get waves of quality web traffic. Your website will get a high PageRank and SERPs, too.

Google wants to ensure that all search queries have relevant links on the results page.

This way, the user problem gets resolved easily.

Pro-Tip: Always create quality content!

According to HubSpot 2016 Report, 1 in 10 blog posts is compounding. This means you get organic search increase over time.

With content, this will make your website more credible than other businesses.

Ideally, you do adjustments on your end before you get help from the experts.

If you need expert help in optimizing your site on search engines, SEO specialists and content writers from Proweaver can takeover.

They know how to create a seamless way of making your site visible on search results. Contact us today.