Welcome to your long-waiting SEO learning journey!
You will get a complete guideline along with basic ideas, to begin with, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that will exceed your willingness to learn ins and outs of SEO. The journey begins with understanding the core aspects of SEO that will be covered throughout. You may find SEO as a complex and dynamic context where ever-changing is a common phenomenon. This free SEO learning experience can make it easier for you to understand the basic and in-depth knowledge of SEO. After completing this journey you will be all set to become a savvy SEO expert.
The basics of SEO
SEO is a modern marketing strategy that
started its history in the 90s when search engines emerged on the internet for
the first time. SEO is the context of optimising websites in the search result
that aims at increasing non-paid traffic to the sites. It deals with improving
the appearance and position of a web page in search engines against the
targeted keyword searches. Google is the current dominant of SEO and in some
cases, the term SEO is used as the synonym of Google Optimization. Within the
modern context, search engine optimization is a must for the owners of a
website whether it's about blogs, products, services or any other content of
the internet. Although paid search can place the website on top of the search
list, the conversion rate is only 2.35% whereas the conversion rate of organic
search engine optimization is 11.45%. Before learning the basic ideas of SEO it
is a must for a beginner to understand the search engines.
Key aspects of SEO
There are 3 key aspects of SEO and these
are known as the SEO Soup. These are technical stuff, great content and quality
backlinks. The following figure is showing the 3 aspects of SEO along with
their representation in the SEO process. The
technical stuff is represented in the bowl which is also known as the
on-page SEO. As per the SEO Soup without the technical stuff, there will be no package
to hold the soup. The second aspect is having great content where the simple rule is high-quality content for
high ranking and low-quality content for no ranking. Finally, quality backlinks work as the authority
of your web page which makes the soup perfect with the proper ingredients.
A brief explanation of SEO-related terms
On-page SEO and Off-page SEO
On-Page
SEO is the context that you can do with your
website that may include content optimization and technical aspects. It also
covers keyword research, content optimization, linking pages, performance optimization
of pages and title tag optimization.
Further, Off Page SEO deals with showing the search engines that your page
has value and authority. This can be done through quality back links that may
also include email outreach, broken link building and guest blogging.
White hat SEO and black hat SEO
You may already be familiar with the black
hat and white hat concept that is mostly seen in western movies where the white
hats represent good people and black hats represent bad people. This has also reflected
the SEO context where the Black Hat SEO
indicates the unethical practices by the SEO experts to rank a website. You may
find it fruitful to rank your site at the top list of the search engine within
a very short-term but may get punished today to tomorrow once the search
engines recognise your unethical practices.
On the other hand, White Hat SEO represents ethical practices by following the regular
guidelines and techniques to rank the website on the search engines. It may
take much time to rank a site but may provide a long-term sustainable rank
along with quality content and user-oriented result.
Algorithm
It is the context where a set of actions is
performed that may consist of automated reasoning and calculations. In terms of
SEO, we mostly denoted algorithm to Google algorithm that considers more than
300 individual signals for factoring results of the search.
Googlebot
It is popularly known as a spider that
works as a web crawler to identify, index and update pages on search engines.
Anchor
text
In terms of SEO anchor text is the
hyperlink that links to another relevant site that may include a page of a
similar site or may include a link to a different domain.
What
are search engines?
A search engine is a software tool that is designed
to explore searched items from the database. In other world, search engines can
be denoted as an online tool that enables users to find data or information on the
internet. Although it is possible for internet users to get information on the
internet without a search engine, it may lead them towards a sea of irrelevant
data and information without even matching their searches and desired content
on the internet.
An example of a popular search engine is
Google. However, Google can be the only example that an individual need to know
about in the current context where it has more than 92.31% market share. Some
other popular search engines are Yahoo, Bing, Baidu and Yandex.
How do search engines work?
Some people think that understanding search
engines and their working process is almost similar to understanding rocket
science but it's not exactly like that. You may find search engines
understandable and much easier to understand once you go through the following
contents. However, there are four core steps through which the search engines
work and these are:
1.
Crawling
2.
Indexing
3.
Picking the results and
4.
Showing the results to the
users in an understandable way
Crawling: It is the process through which the search engines continuously
scan all the linked web pages. To do so search engines use bots that are called
crawlers to identify all the hyperlinks for discovering new pages and the
journey begins with the URLs. Then search engines follow links and crawl
throughout the internet page by page.
Indexing: Once the page is crawled the search engines index the information
where the key tasks performed by the search engines understand the contents of
the pages, categorising them and storing them in the index. Here, it works as a
gigantic library of pre-crawled websites to make the relevant information
available for use as the research result.
Picking
and showing the results: Once the users of search
engines submit a query on the internet, it digs within the pre-indexed pages
and identifies the best results for users. Here, the searched results are
denoted as the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Why is SEO important today?
You may probably hear the term that search
engine optimization is an important digital marketing tool used by modern
business organisations. If you have basic knowledge of the importance of SEO,
still you may not have a solid understanding of the complex process. The depth
of search engine optimization is not limited to marketing strategy rather it
has become an imperative part of individuals for representing their presence on
the internet. In short, search engine optimization is important for making
websites visible to internet users but this is not just limited to increasing
visibility. Another key important you may know about SEO is to increase traffic
to websites. A key objective of search engine optimization is to convert
prospects into final customers. It can also help an organisation to increase
credibility to the prospects by increasing brand awareness, building a
long-term relationship with potential customers and increasing the credibility
of the brand to future customers. Further, SEO can help an organisation to
stand out in the competitive business environment. That’s all you need to know
at this stage about the importance of SEO. You may find it more useful and
important once you go inside this in the future.
Crucial elements of search engine optimization
Keywords
Keywords are the phrases and words used by
internet users to search for their desired content on the internet. Long-back
keywords were the only crucial element that mattered in search engine
optimization. However, the keywords are still the same important element of search
engine optimization where the difference in current SEO practices is that today's
keywords are selected carefully, judicially and well-researched. Before
selecting keywords you must consider high search rate and low competition along
with the selection of short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords and local keywords.
Content
Another important element of search engine
optimization is the content of the page which works as the vehicle you use to
engage with your audience. It is known as the king of search engine
optimization. Here, you may find the given example to understand the importance
of content in search engine optimization practices. If you want to promote its
nursery-related web pages to the prospects, you may post a series of content
related to gardening, tips for growing plants, and right species of plants and
so on. Your prospect may want to look for information about gardening may want
that information that will help you to build a relationship with the prospect.
Back links
You may probably hear the term that if the
content is the king of SEO, back links are the queens of SEO. Back links are
used for accelerating the authority of the web page to search engines. It works
as a vote of confidence for the search engines as well as it works as a source of
vouch for your content over the internet. Back links are votes from the other
websites where each back link tells search engines that the content of your
page is important to the prospects. Your content will also find as valuable,
credible and useful to the search engines because of strong back links.
Frequently asked questions for the beginners
Can I do SEO on my own?
It's true that SEO is not that easy but you
may not find it similar to rocket science. There are things that can be done
easily as well as there are things that might take more effort, time and
patience. So, it's surely possible for an individual to do SEO on his/her own.
How
can I learn SEO?
There are free as well as easily accessible
resources online and offline to learn SEO. You may consider the following
resources for learning SEO:
1.
Reading reliable sources online
2.
Getting hands-on experience
3.
Taking the support of experts
and
4.
Keeping patience to learn new
things
The above guideline can be a good starting
point but do not limit it because the learner can go a far way with the help of
the internet.
How long will it take?
One of the most common answers to this
question is "It Depends". As an SEO learner, you must keep patience
and must put effort to learn new things. However, learning basic knowledge of
SEO may take weeks but mastering SEO may take months even years. You must keep
learning and must keep yourself updated to deal with dynamic SEO contexts.
Do I need SEO tools?
SEO tools are used for making search engine
optimization practices easy and effective. With the advancement of
technologies, SEO tools have become a vital part of your search engine
optimization learning journey. If you are really serious about learning SEO,
you should also gather knowledge on the application of major search engine
optimization tools that can work as a source of competitive advantage by saving
your time as well as by providing better outcomes of search engine optimization
practices. You may find the following SEO tools useful:
1.
Google Analytics (For analysing
the traffic of your website)
2.
KWFinder (For keyword analysis)
3.
LinkMiner (For backlinks
analysis)
4.
SERPWatcher (For tracking the
rank of the page)
Is SEO dead?
Some people may think that SEO is deal with
the introduction of paid search. This is not so true because still SEO is a
growing marketing strategy that can surely provide greater value than paid SEO.
