SEO for Beginners – Understanding the Basics of Search Engine Optimisation
SEO for beginners is a common search on the web. Everyone needs to start somewhere when they are getting to grips with something new, and this includes learning about optimising your website.
Each month, there are an astonishing 59.3 million blogs posted. On WordPress alone, there are 17 posts going out every second! This puts the competition into perspective. So, how are you going to make your blog stand out from the rest? Cue your introduction to Search Engine Optimisation…
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is a marketing practice with the aim to gain greater ‘organic’ (non-paid) traffic through to your website from search engine listings. Or, if you are looking for a really simple answer, SEO is basically the name given to activities you can do to help Google find your website when people search for products/services your business offers.
So, even though the term would suggest that SEO is all about optimising search engines, it is certainly not that.
What does SEO involve?
A lot. SEO involves a lot! But again, don’t worry, we’re going to keep it as short and sweet as possible whilst you are still learning the SEO ropes. The actual practice of Search Engine Optimisation can be broken down into two categories: ‘On-Page Factors’ and ‘Off-Page’ Factors. In a nutshell…
‘On-page’, or on-site for more of a generalisation, is stuff you can do on your website to increase your chances of being found for relevant searches. An example of this would be to create unique, relevant and helpful content for your website on a regular basis.
‘Off-page’ is stuff that happens on external websites that can better your position in the search engines. A simple example of an off-page factor would be acquiring links to your website from other relevant and authoritative websites.
Keywords
We would be doing ‘SEO for beginners’ an injustice if we didn’t mention Keywords at least once! A Keyword is essentially an important word/phrase that describes the content of a page. Think of it like this; you do blog posts for a company that sells second-hand phones. You have just written a post that talks about the 10 best smartphones on the market at the moment. This post is just over a thousand words long and contains pros and cons for every one of these 10 phones. Now, you have just been told by your manager, “I like what you have done with this post, but can we make it a bit less 1000 words and a bit more, just a few words?”. GO! … That right there is more than likely going to be your focus keyword for that post.
Keywords are fundamental to SEO. The sooner you identify what keywords you are competing for, the sooner you can begin your on-page optimisation.
Can you remember when you were an SEO beginner? That’s a thing of the past now! If you did find this post useful then I’m sure there will be others in your social network that will too. It takes just two clicks to share the love… or share our post. Whichever way you look at it, it’s just two clicks!
