How to Learn SEO: Step-By-Step Guide

Learning SEO may seem confusing at first. However, if you sell your products and services online, you must have a good SEO strategy to boost your revenue by reaching out to more people. You might not have a lot of thoughts about SEO, but don’t worry; we will help you. Here’s how to learn SEO

Today, we are here to provide a comprehensive SEO guide for you. First, we will clarify what exactly SEO is. Second, we will introduce you to 4 fundamental steps to learn SEO:

• Understand search engines,
• Understand the goal of SEO,
• Learn different SEO strategies like on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
• Do keyword research.

What Is SEO? 

Search engines don’t randomly select the pages to show when an internet user searches for something. They use complex algorithms to provide the most relevant results. This is exactly where search engine optimization comes in. SEO is a process that allows you to optimize your website and drive more organic traffic to improve your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). It means that internet users will be more likely to encounter your content when searching for something. 

4 Steps to Learn SEO 

Do you want to learn SEO? We would like to introduce you to the SEO world step by step to make it easier to understand. 

Understand Search Engines 

Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, and even Baidu are the most frequently used search engines across the world. So, why do you think these are the most popular ones? It is simple to understand. Compared to other unfamiliar search engines, they provide the most relevant results to their users. These search engines have complex and strong algorithms. They first collect information and content from millions of websites and then store them in their databases. Thus, when a user types something into the search bar, it becomes much easier for the search engines to find the most relevant results.

Understand the Goal of SEO Strategy

To have a good SEO strategy, you should also understand the goal of SEO. As we know, businesses and brands have different marketing efforts, but the common point is that they try to boost revenue. That’s how SEO helps. Its basic goal is to boost your presence in the most relevant search engine results. In other words, SEO helps you rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs). Your website can drive more organic traffic and reach more qualified leads when you rank higher.

Learn On-Page, Off-Page, and Technical SEO

There are three main types of SEO techniques. These are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. So, let’s look at them in a detailed way.

Technical SEO

Search engines crawl and index web pages based on different factors. All these factors have a common goal: to provide a better user experience. This is where technical SEO comes into play. It is about optimizing the technical aspects of your website, from improving your website speed to making it mobile-friendly. 

Technical SEO Elements

• Website Loading Speed: Your website speed is the number one factor that Google and other search engines take into account. The less time it takes your website to load, the higher you rank on search engines.
• Mobile-friendliness: Mobile-friendly websites provide the best presentation of your web pages to a mobile device user. Therefore, your website should be responsive and optimized to be viewed properly on phones, tablets, and other mobile devices. 
• Duplicate Content: Duplicate content is the same or similar content copies that appear on multiple pages within your own or other sites. In this case, the large amounts of duplicate content harm search engine rankings. You may be wondering ‘Why?’ When there are several versions of a given content, it is difficult for search engines to establish which version should be indexed.
• Broken Links: Broken links are links that send users to a web page that no longer works. In other words, they are links that redirect users to the 404 error page. Having broken links on your site can result in a bad user experience and lower rankings in search results.

On-Page SEO 

On-page SEO, also known as on-site SEO, is about optimizing the parts of your website that affect your search engine rankings. It involves page URL, meta description, title tags, headings, images, content quality, etc. The main purpose of on-page SEO is to help search engines understand your site’s content and structure by adjusting specific elements.

On-Page SEO Elements

Time needed: 15 minutes.

In other words, on-page SEO helps you make your website search engine friendly.

1. Page URL

   Your page URL is another important on-page SEO element. Since it helps search engines to understand the relevance, it is better if your URL contains your target keywords.

2. Meta descriptions

   Meta descriptions are the thing that provides a brief description of your web pages, which appear under your headline in the search engine results. Its length should be between 50 and 160 characters, including spaces. 

3. Title tags

   Title tags are a tag that allows you to give a title to a web page. In this case, you should use your target keywords in the title tag of each page.

4. Headings (H1)

   Headlines are the first thing that not only your visitors but also search engines see. That’s why it’s a good idea to add your keywords to the title of each web page on your site.

5. Navigation

   The navigation on your site is an important element taken into account by search engines. Well-designed navigation helps you create a positive user experience, as it helps your users access the content on your web pages.

Off-Page SEO 

Also known as off-site SEO, it is about increasing the authority of your domain and promoting your website by getting links from third-party websites.

Off-Page SEO Elements

• Backlinks: The number of backlinks websites get plays a critical role. A site with more backlinks will likely rank higher in search engine results than other sites. 
• Social media: Even though your links, comments, followers, or clicks do not directly impact your rankings, social media platforms like Facebook are a perfect way to extend the reach of your business.
• Guest Posting: Guest posting is a way to drive referral traffic to your site from third-party websites to create authority and links. It can be simply defined as inviting another website owner to your site to write a blog or article that will be shared on your site.
• Directory or Local Listings: You can not only increase your reputation but also improve your rankings by being viewed in localized search results. At this point, Google My Business should be your first option to provide important business information directly to Google.

Do Keyword Research

Keywords, also known as search queries, are words or phrases that internet users enter into search bars to find what they’re looking for. As you may guess, high-ranking keywords allow you to drive more organic traffic to your web pages from search engines. When you choose keywords that users frequently search for and are suitable for your business, you can reach more potential visitors more quickly. 

Several online keyword research tools are available that make your keyword research process a bit faster. The world’s number one search engine, Google, provides a free keyword research tool: Google Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to find out what users are searching for. You can also use SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, AnswerThePublic, etc.

FAQs About Learning SEO

Can I learn SEO from scratch on my own?

Absolutely yes! All you need to have is time, willingness, and a little bit of patience. 

What is the goal of keyword research?

Keyword research is about figuring out what your target visitors are searching for. So, you can optimize your website more efficiently.

What is keyword cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization occurs when you optimize your site’s content with too many identical or similar keywords. In other words, your multiple blog posts or articles are competing for the same keyword, and you are “cannibalizing” your results.

My Google rankings dropped after new backlinks. What is the problem?

The number of backlinks you have is not the only factor Google considers. The quality of backlinks plays a vital role in ranking higher. If you have received backlinks from poor quality or unrelated sources, these may be the problem.

What are the best SEO tools?

Google services like Mobile-Friendly Test, PageSpeed Insight, Analytics, Ahrefs, SEMrush.

Our Final Thoughts on Learning SEO

Search engines try to provide the most relevant results to their users. To achieve this, they analyze a lot of factors, from website load time to mobile friendliness. Based on these factors, your websites are crawled and indexed. To be on the first pages of search engines, you need to implement a good SEO strategy. In today’s guide, we’ve talked about how to learn SEO. Understand search engines and their complex algorithms, understand the goal of SEO, learn different SEO techniques – on-site SEO, off-site SEO, and technical SEO-, and do effective keyword research. 

The post How to Learn SEO: Step-By-Step Guide is republished from Dopinger Blog