Best Beginners Guide SEO

• Relevance
• Site Speed
• Responsive Mobile
• Backlinks
• Engagement
• Content

• To help businesses in creating high-quality content to improve ranking in SERP organically.
• To help create a website that crawlers can index and understand its content.

Steps of Search Engine Optimization Process

1. On-page SEO: These are rules that can be updated on your site and content to make it search engine friendly.
2. Off-page SEO: These refer to settings or modifications to a website or blog so that it can rank higher in search results.
3. Technical SEO: Technical SEO ensures that search engines crawl and index your website without any issues.
4. Local SEO: refers to ways to promote a brand/company in local directories.
5. Universal SEO: Universal SEO refers to the integration of content with multimedia.
6. International SEO: International SEO refers to the optimization of a website for other countries’ languages.

What is On-page SEO?

1. Understand a page’s topic and keywords
2. Can match it to relevant searches.

1. Keywords

Keywords describe the search term which a user types to find a website in the search engine. It can be a single word or a phrase. We should try to use our keyword within the first 100 words. This signals to search engines that it’s the primary topic of your page and tells users they are in the right place. Keyword density refers to how often you use a specific keyword on a web page. If there are 100 words on a page and you use your target keyword five times, your keyword density is 5%.

While there are no hard and fast rules about keyword density in on-page SEO, we make sure keywords appear naturally throughout the post. The aim is to ensure an optimal keyword density that’s in line with the top-ranking content for that search term.

In addition to the primary keyword, include synonyms, long-tail keywords, and related terms that could help in the ranking of the page.

We can look at some helpful metrics, like monthly search volume and competition, to determine which keywords offer you the most value. In most cases, smaller companies will focus on long-tail keywords or keywords with three to four words. Long-tail keywords often have lower monthly search volumes, but they also have lower competition. It’s typically easier to decipher the search intent behind long-tail keywords since they are more specific. For example, if someone searches the short-tail term, “dog treats,” it’s hard to identify exactly what they want to find. Maybe they’re researching the best dog treats for small dogs, or they might want to try a dog treat recipe.

On the other hand, if someone searches the long-tail phrase, “buy dog treats for puppies,” you know exactly what they want to find — and that they’re ready to purchase. High-performing SEO campaigns contain both short and long-tail keywords — and the terms you choose to target will depend on your business and goals.

2. URL

URL is like an address, but for a page on the Internet. URLs for your website’s pages should include brief descriptions of the page’s topic. Including your keyword in your URL instead of a long string of jumbled numbers also makes your site easier to navigate and gives people a better idea of your page topics.

Google has explicitly stated that URLs help them better understand what a page is all about. So, to optimize the URLs we need to follow these:

1. Include a keyword: Including your primary keyword in a URL helps both search engines and users understand the content of a page.
2. Focus left: Place the keyword as far to the left in the URL as possible.
3. Use real words: use real words in your URL instead of the indecipherable gobbledegook that some content management systems pump out.
4. Keep them short and sweet
5. Use hyphens between words: Hyphens make URLs more readable.
6. Avoid sessions id’s: Google advises that we use cookies instead of sessions id.

3. Title Tag

A title tag is a websites page’s title that appears only in search results. Search result has to know about the page to show our website in search engine results pages (SERPs). Keywords used in the title tag of each page make it easier for the crawlers to understand the website. So, to optimize the Title tag we need to follow these steps:

• The keyword should be placed near the beginning of the title.
• A title should be around 55 or 60 characters including space to avoid ellipses (…).
• Avoid all caps in your title tags.
• Each page must have a unique title so that the search engine doesn’t confuse with the duplicate pages.
• A title should be clear, and compelling to the user.

4. Meta Description

A meta description is a summary of the page that appears in SERPs underneath the title of the page. A meta-description doesn’t influence our on-page optimization directly. It’s a feature that helps users, however, learn more about our page. Include our core and related keywords in our meta-description for the best results. So, to optimize the Meta tag we need to follow these:

• Include the primary keyword in the meta-description. When someone searches for that keyword, the search engine will bold it in the search results.
• Keep the meta-description to 140-160 characters.

5. Headline Tags

Please make sure to use only one H1 tag per page. Heading tags break up content with H2s, H3s, and H4s to improve its readability. When it comes to heading tags, you want to use them for search engines and users. We can also add our core or related keywords to provide search engines with more context for our page. Header tags aren’t as critically important for your site rankings as they used to be, but these tags still serve an important function:

• Made content easier and enjoyable to read for visitors.
• Provide keyword-rich context about the content for the search engines.

6. Internal Link

Internal links play an important role for search engines to understand the association between pages of a website. They also enhance the user experience.

A strong internal linking strategy also improves Google Analytics SEO metrics like bounce rate and conversion rate. We must include internal links to and from other related pages on our website. It’s important to link out from authoritative pages like the homepage of our website.

Internal links don’t increase a website’s authority because we can add as many internal links ourselves. But in some cases of extremely high domain authority, internal links can be more important than even backlinks.

7. Image Optimization

Adding images is a way to make a webpage more pleasing. Images used on the website also need to be optimized for SEO. First, give them a descriptive hyphen separated name. Next, optimize the file size so that it loads quickly while still maintaining the quality of the image. Finally, add text to the image alt tags, with the appropriate keyword included in the text. The alt text helps search engines and visually impaired visitors to understand the image easily. For image optimization tools like TinyPNG, ImageOptim, or WP Smush can be used.

Image optimization has many advantages, such as:

• Additional ranking opportunities.
• Improve user experience.
• Page loads faster.

8. Content

Another ranking factor that will help to be at the top of the list is the content of the website. A search engine looks for fresh content consistently, so it knows that you’re quite active. Content retains people on a website. This is a signal to the search engines that you’re providing relevant and useful information.

Content provides users with answers and search engines with context. With content, you give users a reason to visit your site. Optimizing your content can help search engines understand and rank your content, which can lead to people finding your website. On-page SEO for content revolves around the following practices:

• Headings and paragraphs should contain the keywords.
• Images should accompany the content.
• Ensure that the content uses correct spelling and grammar.
• Make the content trustworthy and authoritative.

Although readability isn’t a direct ranking factor, it should still be part of an on-page SEO process. If your text is hard to read, then users may quickly bounce, signalling to Google that the content is not valuable and should be ranked lower.

To make your text readable:

• Disintegrate the content into small parts for better understanding.
• Use multiple headers and subheadings.
• Smaller and distinct paragraphs are preferred to have an easy comprehension
• Simplify the list in individual points.
• We should incorporate supporting images and other visuals.
• Sentences should be clear, and actionable.

Remember, most people will be reading your content on mobile devices, so make it easy for them to scroll and skim.

9. Structured Data

Structured Data helps Google understand your content even better, so should be a crucial part of your on-page SEO audit. For example, say you have a product page that includes things like prices, availability, ratings, etc. Unless you structure that information in a specific way in the HTML, Google won’t be able to understand it.

10. Mobile Friendliness

Mobile-friendliness describes a site’s usability on mobile devices. A mobile-friendly website is essential now because more than 50% of the Internet’s traffic comes from mobile devices. If people on smartphones and tablets were not able to access our site, our rankings in search results will go down. Mobile compatibility is a requirement, especially if we want to rank high for our keywords. Google considers mobile compatibility when it ranks your website. Low compatibility means low rank. With a responsive website, you have a single site, which makes it easy to update your website and add new content.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO helps search engines better understand our website. And that improves our rankings, which leads to more organic traffic. With on-page SEO, we have several different ranking factors. We need to optimize all these ranking factors. It will take time to optimize each of these factors will improve our rankings in search results and make our website more competitive and difficult to beat. Following best practices for these factors, however, will help to create a website that can endure algorithm updates.

What is Off-page SEO?

Off-Page SEO or offsite SEO is the optimization activities done outside of your website with the potential to affect search engine rankings. Optimizing your website for off-page SEO means you’ll have to improve the way that both users and search engines see your site in terms of credibility, authority, popularity, and relevance.

An effort to generate links and ratings to build credibility and rank to our website from an external website or other websites which has higher Page Authority & Domain Authority is Off-Page SEO. Other websites point and recommend your website in form of links called Backlinks. Off-page SEO do well only if you pay attention to the fundamentals of on-page SEO.

Search engines evaluate many factors when determining a page’s ranking. Off-page SEO is so valuable because the ranking factors are based on website content and performance, its understanding of our website through sources outside of our domain.

It is often thought to just be link building, but in reality, there are far more off-page SEO tactics that we have to use if you want to gain a competitive advantage. Search engines take into account many off-page factors when ranking web pages. Links are one of those factors, but there are many others. Content from higher authority websites ranks higher than those with lower authority. It’s challenging to rank on the merit of our content alone.

Four primary factors we should consider with link buildings are:

1. Referring Domains

According to Google- The more domains you have directing to a website, the more votes of confidence one have. Not only does having more links from unique websites or referring domains equate to higher rankings, but also more organic search traffic.

2. Link Authority

Links are not created equal. Quality of the link matters.

Link authority is built into the same way the PageRank works. The higher the “authority” of the linked page, the more authority it passes onto the pages to which it is linked.

In other words, it is not enough to have a lot of referring domains, if the referring domains have low domain authority, you need to be referenced by domains with high authority. A link from a high authority page is worth more than one from a low-authority page.

3. Relevance

Backlinks are effectively votes. If a site links to you, they’re vouching for the quality of your content or business. But not all of these votes are created equal. The relevance of the linking website and web page also matters.

We should always aim to land links from relevant websites As an example if you run a travel site, you should aim for the majority of the links that you earn to come from other travel sites; bloggers, online publishers, tourism boards, and the like. It makes sense.

It is OK to have some links that come from other topics if they are natural and make sense; just aim for the majority to be closely topically aligned.

4. Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the clickable words used to link one web page to another. The specific text that’s hyperlinked and points to your website should be descriptive and relevant, without sounding spammy.

In other words, we can say backlinks with anchor text relating to the overall topic of your web page have some influence on rankings. For more information on off-page SEO, read our blog: Off-page SEO Complete Guide

Why is off-page SEO important?

When a user types a search query, search engine algorithms look into their index and try to find the best pages that can satisfy the intent of the user. Pages that are good candidates appear in the first positions of the search results. The number of incoming links or backlinks are important factors that determine the position of a webpage in the results.

Backlinks are a signal of trust and depending on where the links are coming from, they can greatly affect the ranking position. If the links are coming from well-known and trusted sites, the ranking will be affected positively.

Google takes into account many off-page factors when deciding if and where to rank web pages. Links are one of those factors, but there are many others. For that reason, it’s challenging to rank on the merit of your content alone. Off-page SEO is tremendously valuable because it tells search engines that your website is important to others on the web. Every link that you receive acts as an endorsement from another source that your website is quality.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is part of on-page SEO. It refers to the optimizations of website and server that help search engine spiders to crawl and index a website more effectively which in turn help to improve the organic rankings of the same. It has nothing to do with the content aspect of a website. Technical SEO concern is the settings or configurations we need to do for search engine crawlers on a website to make their job easier.

Technical SEO is a static process. Once the technical SEO is accomplished correctly, we may not have to work on it again and again. If a website has problems with crawling and indexing, it can impact the ranking of a website negatively.

Google helps to monitor and optimize these technical aspects with Google Search Console to which you must have access. You need to add your property (website) in Google Search Console to better handle the Technical SEO. For more information on technical SEO, read our blog: Technical SEO Complete Guide

Important steps of Technical SEO:

• Secure Socket Layer

Secure Socket Layer or SSL is a security technology that creates an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. HTTPS makes sure that no one can intercept the data that’s sent over between the browser and the website. So, for instance, if people log in to a website, their credentials are safe. In 2014 Google announced that they wanted to see ‘HTTPS everywhere and that secure HTTPS websites were given preference over non-secure ones in search results. So, it makes sense to ensure that your site is a secure one. This can be done by installing an SSL certificate on our website. Google acknowledges the importance of security and therefore made HTTPS a ranking signal.

• Mobile Responsive or Mobile Usability

The mobile responsiveness of a website also matters to overall search rankings. A responsive website design adjusts itself automatically so that it can be navigated and read easily on any device. Search Engines are very clear about the fact that having a responsive site is considered a significant ranking signal by its algorithms. With the introduction of Google’s mobile-first approach to indexing content, a responsive website is now more important than ever.

• Page Speed

The time it takes for a user to be able to read the page, search engines use this load time as a quality indicator since 2010. Search engines prefer websites that load quickly. Mostly 40% of people will close a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. By speeding up, you can deliver answers to people and you’ll get more engagement, high user experience, and higher rankings. Many website elements can affect it. Image size, for example. There are several ways you can improve your website:

• Use fast hosting
• Use a fast DNS provider
• Minimalize the HTTP requests
• Use only one CSS stylesheet instead of multiple CSS stylesheets or inline CSS,
• Use compressed image files.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and Pingdom’s Website Speed Test are good resources for identifying the aspects of your website that are slowing it down.

• Canonical or Duplicate Content

Identical or quite similar content on multiple pages of our site or even on other sites might confuse search engines. They often find it impossible to determine which content they should rank higher in the search results. Unfortunately, you might have a duplicate content issue without even knowing it. Because of technical reasons, different URLs can show the same content. For a visitor, this doesn’t make any difference, but for a search engine it does; it’ll see the same content on a different URL.

Duplicate content may be considered a negative factor by the search engines. They can penalize a website by not displaying any of those pages at all. There is a solution called canonical link element, where we can indicate which is the original page for ranking in the SERP.

• XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that helps search engines to understand a website while crawling it. We can think of it as being like a search roadmap of sorts, indicating the search engines exactly where each page is. It also contains other information about each page on your website, including:

• Page was last modified,
• Priority of a page on our site,
• Frequently it is updated.

• AMP-enabled

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Page uses the special code known as AMP HTML which fulfils the objectives of fast delivery of content on mobile devices. AMP versions of web pages load quickly on mobile devices. This is being achieved by stripping our content and code down to the bare bones, leaving text, images, and video intact but disabling scripts, comments and forms.

AMP versions of pages are fast to load so they are far more likely to be read and shared by the users, increasing the residence time and the number of backlinks pointing to our content is good things from an SEO perspective. On top of that, Google sometimes highlights AMP pages in prominent carousels in search results.

• Structured markup data

Structured data markup is a code that we can add to our website to help search engines better understand the content available on it. Structured data help search engines to index our website more efficiently and to deliver more appropriate results.

• Google Search Console/Bing Webmaster Tools

Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are free tools from Google and Microsoft respectively that allow you to submit your website to their search engines for indexing.

When our website is ready to launch, we need to submit its XML sitemap to both Google Search Console and Webmaster Tools so that they can crawl our new website and start to display results from it in search results. Features of the tools include:

• access search analytics
• test site’s mobile usability
• view backlinks
• disavow spammy links

• Broken Links

A broken link is a hyperlink. A website that is linked to an empty or non-existent external webpage. When a broken link is clicked, an error message is displayed. A broken link is also known as a broken hyperlink or a dead link.

What is the importance of Technical SEO?

Importance of Technical SEO the search engine wants to present the users with the best possible results for their query/searches. In the case of Google, Google bots crawl and evaluate web pages on a wide range of parameters. Some of these parameters are based on how fast page loads, performance, core web vitals, user experience, responsive mobile, etc. Other parameters may help crawlers understand what our content is all about, this is what Structured Data does.

We can help search engines crawl and understand our website better by improving technical aspects. If you do this well, we might be rewarded with higher rankings or even rich results. It also works the other way around: if you make serious technical mistakes on our website, they will levy a penalty on you.

You should focus on the technical details of a website just to please search engines. A website should work fast, clear, and easy to use in the first place. Fortunately, creating a strong technical foundation often coincides with a better experience for both users and search engines.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is a strategy that involves optimizing a website to be more visible in local search results. This is typically used for any business that has a physical location or serves a geographic area that can benefit from local SEO. 89% of people search for a local business on their phone once a week and 58 per cent do it daily.

It is all about making your product and or services more accessible to your local region by using the best practices in Google Business Profile and other local business directories. With directory submission, we can boost the link-building results to see an improvement in the overall SEO of a website.  This is achieved organically without advertising. It is also about various other platforms you can use for the same purpose. Let’s try to understand Local SEO in detail.

Here are the 4 important factors of Local SEO:

• A company should be listed in local and national business directories, namely Google Business Profile, etc.
• Claim your listing on review sites and respond to reviews.
• Leave positive reviews online to encourage the customers.
• Contact information has to be consistent across all digital platforms.

For business owners who run their business locally, however, Google also lets you position it in front of potential customers in your area, specifically. But for that, you use local SEO. For more information on local SEO, read our blog: Best Local SEO Practices for beginners

Why is local SEO important?

While each local business is unique, nearly all of them need to be discoverable online. Practices like optimizing a website, creating local business listings and Social Media presence, managing reviews, and earning links all share the goal of driving increased online engagement.

When it comes to local SEO, it isn’t all that different from organic SEO. Keyword research, content, links, and on-page technical SEO. It just has a local focus.

What is Universal SEO?

Universal SEO or Blended SEO refers to the integration of content with multimedia such as images, videos, news articles, podcasts, e-books, or maps on various platforms the organic search results of a search

Google has been evolving and trying to find new ways to streamline the search engine optimization process. Any search result in Google generally used to list 10 links in a single page in 2007. More detailed approaches from Google resulted in additional media next to SERP results. This allows searchers ease of decision making and understanding the patterns and evaluating the traffic. For more information on universal SEO, read our blog: Complete guide on Universal SEO

What is International SEO?

International SEO is the process of optimizing a website to enable search engines to identify the countries and languages that are intended to be used for the business.

hreflang tag informs search engines of the languages in which the content is available. For example <link rel=”alternate” href=”http://example.com/fr” hreflang=”fr-fr”/> will notify the search engines that an alternate version of the content is available in French.

Final Thoughts

Digital Marketing Academy, Bangalore cover all the topics including social media, email marketing, content marketing, app store optimization, affiliate marketing etc. Search engine optimization (SEO) standards are evolving every day. Search engines are improving how they convey results to users.

Off-page SEO might seem harder than on-page SEO because we can’t control the off-page factors that aren’t entirely under our control. The harder something is to earn, the more reliable it is as a ranking factor. Traditional online and offline marketing activities are also important and can affect indirectly many of the factors mentioned above.

The blog is co-authored by our student Mrs. Varsh Sahu, her LinkedIn Profile.