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So you’ve completed your website. You’ve written your content, you’ve refined your design, and you’re ready to publish and start ranking.
Now what?
SEO or search engine optimization is an entire discipline in and of itself, but don’t let that overwhelm you!
With this easy-to-follow beginner’s guide, you’ll not only learn key SEO basics to help you rank quickly, but you’ll also gain crucial skills that will set you up for better rankings over time.
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Search engine optimization is the process of improving a website’s visibility in the search engine results pages. The goal of SEO is to attract organic (non-paid) traffic to your website.
There are lots of individual pieces that make up the big picture of SEO, but the most important thing you can do is take the time to get each step right. Then, follow up on them consistently to help your pages rank better over time.
You may be surprised at all of the things that go on behind the scenes when you search. Whenever a user does a search, the search engine (whether it’s Google, Bing, Yahoo or any other) goes to work, analyzing billions of pages. These pages are generally ranked in terms of how well they answer three main questions:
Of course, there are many other factors that go into ranking a site, and every search engine is different, but generally, if it has those three points covered, it’s already starting out right.
SEO matters because it’s a method of getting free website traffic. If your SEO is good, it can help you optimize your marketing budget and reduce paid traffic spend.
That way, you can take advantage of all of the benefits of having a top-ranked site, including:
Now that you better understand the SEO basics, let’s take a look at how to actually get started ranking your pages for the best possible results.
Getting started with SEO basics typically means beginning with keyword research. Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into Google or other search engines.
In order to increase the chances that your pages will show up in the search rankings, you have to identify and target relevant keywords
The good news is that there are keyword research tools that will do this.
Originality.ai’s Content Optimizer can help you identify relevant keywords and optimize your content with intelligent AI SEO suggestions. Plus, it’s designed to resist manipulation tactics like keyword stuffing.
When researching keywords, you’re going to want to do so with a focus on user intent. User intent boils down to four main categories:
You’ll also want to target keywords that are much more in-depth than single-word terms or short-tail keywords.
Example: instead of “laptops”, which is searched a lot but may fall into at least three of the aforementioned categories, it’s better to target what are called “long tail keywords,” since they may be searched less, but the people searching are much more likely to buy.
You’re more likely to get a sale by targeting a long-tail keyword like “best laptops for developers under [price point]” than a more generic term.
In doing keyword research (depending on the tool), you’ll also typically see columns for search volume (which tells you how often the term is searched) and difficulty (which tells you how easy or hard the term is to rank for).
Choose keywords that have a good balance of high search volume and low competition.
You can also use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to see which keywords your competitors rank for and get a good starting point for what to focus on.
On-page SEO refers to the things on your website that you can optimize, such as your content, headings, and page structure.
There are several on-page factors you can adjust in order to make them more appealing to your readers and search engines alike:
Use primary keywords at the start of the title, for example, “Digital Marketing Basics: The Definitive Digital Marketing Guide.”
Then, write a compelling summary between 150-160 characters for your meta description. Meta descriptions appear in addition to the title and are designed to let users know what they can expect by clicking.
Keep URLs short and to the point, and use hyphens instead of underscores for easier readability.
By default, some content management systems (CMS) will automatically name your page something like /?p=38794; however, you can and should change this to be more descriptive of what your page is actually about.
For example, going back to the digital marketing theme, a URL for “Digital Marketing Basics: The Definitive Digital Marketing Guide” might be: /digital-marketing-basics
Your header tags (H1, H2, H3) serve as headings for your page and to break up information. The H1 tag should be the main topic of the page, while H2 and H3 tags serve as subheadlines to make the page more readable.
Link to related content on your page to keep users engaged and make it easier for search engines to find and index more of your content.
For instance, if you’re writing a blog post about the “digital marketing basics”, it would make sense to link to another page on your site about “digital marketing analytics” or “digital marketing strategies.”
Compressed images load faster, and less load time for a website is a good thing. Don’t forget to add alt text for accessibility and optimization benefits.
More and more of your users will be reading your content on a mobile device. In addition, Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites. Make sure that the template or layout you’re using is mobile-responsive.
It’s a good idea to preview your pages on mobile devices as well to make sure that your content can be easily read, buttons are clickable, and images adjust accordingly.
Beyond optimizing different aspects of your own pages, there’s also off-page SEO, which involves building high-quality, relevant backlinks from other websites to yours. There are several ways to do this, including:
All of these are well-known strategies for getting backlinks. However, avoid link strategies that don’t comply with Google’s spam policies, which could negatively impact rankings.
Beyond on-page and off-page SEO, there’s also the technical side of things:
After you’ve optimized your on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, it’s time to measure and track your efforts over time to see how they’re paying off.
Keep in mind that SEO isn’t a once-and-done thing but rather an ongoing process.
There are tools that can help you see how your page is ranking, including:
Now that you better understand the basics, there’s one more important point to keep in mind — organic SEO is a long-term investment.
It can take weeks or even months to see significant improvement. The good news is that all your hard work will pay off with ongoing organic traffic and growth over time.
Keep in mind that SEO is also always evolving. Search engines are always updating their algorithms, so staying informed is important to your long-term success.
Also, remember that content quality matters more than quantity. Focus on creating valuable content and earning high-authority backlinks. Good SEO requires consistency, ongoing content optimization and patience.
Be sure to check the Originality.ai blog often as we continue to create more helpful guides for content professionals looking to improve their rankings and excel in content marketing:
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