SEO Basics for Newbies: Easy Guide

SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization which means improving your website’s overall site structure, performance, navigation, and content to increase your visibility in the Search Engine like Google, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and more.

These Search Engines crawl your site using their bots and have their algorithms to determine which site to rank according to their content and authority.

3 main components of search engine optimization

1. On-Page SEO
2. Off-Page SEO
3. Technical SEO

On-Page SEO

On-page optimization is the process of creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content that satisfies user intent and addresses their queries (keywords).

Everything done within your website to improve your Search Engine Ranking visibility is called On-Page Optimization. Learning SEO from Onpage is recommended to beginners as you will have full control over everything you do.

Most people might think it is a one-time task but you must continue to improve content with better keyword research and update it for the highest quality.

SEO On-Page handbook passed down by our SEO gurus suggests the following optimization methods which you as a Beginner should follow for the best results.

1. High Quality Content: Create engaging content that satisfies user intent which you’ve ranked for (EG: If a visitor visits your site/article then he should not need to search again for the same query.
2. Keyword Optimization: Placing your targeted keywords in titles, headings, meta tags, and throughout the content can improve your visibility for their search queries.
3. Meta Tags: Write meta titles and descriptions with your targeted keywords for the SERP to increase your click-through rate. (Note: SERP might ignore your custom Meta tags and take it from your article)
4. URL: Use your targeted keyword in the Permalink (EG: website.com/article-Keyword-Information).
5. Headings: Use your keywords in H1, H2, and H3 naturally and in order as Search Engine are algorithms.
6. Image Optimization: Images can bring you lots of traffic as well and all you need to do is use original images and give descriptive filenames, alt tags, and captions to improve accessibility and visibility.
7. Internal Linking: Logically connect your relevant pages to distribute link equity throughout the website.
8. User Experience (UX): Improve your overall user experience through navigation, reducing bounce rates. (Note: Improve everything that annoys your users)
9. Content Formatting: Use proper formatting techniques like lists, bold/italic text, and quotes to make content scannable and easy to digest for users and search engines.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to optimization activities outside your website to improve its visibility, authority, and reputation across the web.

In this section of SEO, we try to create awareness of our website’s existence using different methods such as social media, brand mentions from popular websites, adding websites to Google Maps for local, and more.

1. Link Building: Getting high-quality backlinks from high authority and relevant websites. (Eg: Getting links from CNN has more quality than receiving it from 100 unknown and spammy  websites)
2. Social Media: Active engagement on social media can increase your brand visibility and indirectly boost your visibility in the Search Engine. Sharing your website’s articles can increase traffic and social signals.
3. Brand Mentions: When a reputable and authoritative website mentions your website it can indirectly contribute to your website’s authority.
4. Guest Blogging: One of the most used techniques to get backlinks from high authority and relevant websites. Offering high-quality guest posts within your industry can help build your brand’s reputation earning you a link.
5. Local SEO: Optimizing your website for local search by creating and maintaining a presence on local business directories, review platforms, and Google My Business can improve your visibility in local search results and attract customers in your geographical area.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is optimizing the technical aspect of your website to improve its visibility and accessibility to search engines. It will ease the work of Search engine crawlers to effectively crawl, index, and understand a website’s content.

Many free and premium SEO tools will help check the site’s crawlability.

1. Website Crawlability: What’s the use if a Search Engine cannot even crawl your website? They need to crawl to understand your website to rank it. Issues such as broken links, crawl errors, or inaccessible pages prevent them from being indexed.
2. Page Speed: Finally improve your website speed, you can do it so by optimizing images, and minifying CSS and JavaScript. (You can check your site speed via https://pagespeed.web.dev/)
3. SSL Certificate: HTTPs encrypt data and secure browsing experience, also the use of HTTPs is considered a ranking factor in Google. 
4. Canonicalization: Resolving duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred version of a page. helps prevent issues with duplicate content penalties and ensures that search engines index the correct version of your content.
5. Mobile Responsiveness: Make your website available on Mobile Phone. (Note: As of February 2024, mobile devices contribute to 61.21% of all website traffic.)
6. Sitemap: It ensures all important pages are crawled and indexed properly. Creating and submitting a sitemap to a search engine will help them find and index your website pages more efficiently.
7. Schema Markup: Implementing structured data markup to provide search engines with additional context about the content on the page, which can enhance visibility in rich snippets and featured snippets.