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When I started learning digital marketing many years ago, I was scared of the term SEO. It sounded synonymous with complex, dangerous, and difficult. The reality is that SEO is straightforward – if you understand it.

And how? Know the jargon, know your audience, and just follow these ten easy steps to learn SEO!

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

Whenever we need information, we go to Google. Most people rely on Google for the best results. Why? Google has an extensive database and intelligent algorithms to determine the most relevant pages and results for a user's query.

There are other search engines – Bing, Yahoo! etc, but they are not as popular as google for the reasons above. According to netmarketshare.com, Google search engines account for 69.80%, followed by Bing with 13.31% – a big difference!

For example, if a user types in "Apple," how does Google know if it is the fruit or the company? Google finds the relevant pages, saves them and shows them to users.

Some important terms:

Crawl (find relevant page): Google opens a page and then follows the links on that page to discover other pages. This continues until there are no more pages to be discovered – or Google receives all pages. If you give Google an easy way to "crawl" (via SEO), Google will get you full marks!

Indexing (saving pages): Search engines don't see a page the way we do. It looks for specific content that will make it easier to store or index the data. For example, the on-page links, the alt-link text, the H1 heading, the H2 heading, the number of unique words, the frequency of the keyword phrases, etc. are saved. With the right search engine optimization, we can make the Google index the most accurate data.

Queries (showing the results to the searcher): Google searches its database for the user's query and returns the most relevant results based on the "Some" algorithm. The exact algorithm – nobody knows, but Google gives pages with real backlinks 100 marks.

Now back to our question: "What is SEO?" How should I optimize my website for Google? Or how can I get my website into the top 3? What exactly is optimization?

There are two types of SEO: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. There are many techniques for both, and you need to take care of both of them in order for your website to rank well!

10 easy steps to SEO

Now that we know what to do, let's see how to do it:

1. Understand the goals

First of all, you need to develop a good SEO strategy. Find:

• How viewers interact with your website
• What content are you looking for?
• Most frequent search terms
• How your pages work
• What content needs to be revised?

This is like dusting before you thoroughly clean the house. Some helpful tools in this process are Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Google Search Central.

2. Perform a website check

As Google needs to bring the best website to the top, the eligibility rules are becoming increasingly stringent. This means that you need to update your content and check your website regularly to check relevance, easy accessibility and internal links. Google will reject your website if there are any violations. The best tools for testing are Moz Site Audit, Checklist, and WooRank.

3. Improve the website architecture

The site architecture is the structure through which you serve the content of your website. For example,

Users find content and search engine bots crawl your pages through this structure. The best architecture is one in which users and crawlers can easily navigate and find relevant content. Some simple tips for good architecture are:

• Keep URLs simple, friendly
• Use a sitemap
• Easy navigation through all websites: For example, the "Shoes" tab should be just a click away from the homepage!
• Make sure meta tags are in place and optimized

4. Add rich content to each page

At the end of the day the king is satisfied! Understand what viewers want to see and create content accordingly. Add unique and informative content to avoid lint at all costs. Remember that one of the main reasons certain websites are popular is because of their original content. Add pictures, videos, descriptions, correct headings and place keywords well. Don't clutter your content with keywords.

5. Do keyword research

Know what the audience is looking for. For example, if someone wants to search for a local supermarket, they will most likely type in "supermarkets near me", "best supermarket nearby", "where can I get groceries nearby", and so on. If your website contains these keywords, Google will easily find your website and get you on the list. Google Trends is a powerful keyword research tool for finding trending keywords.

6. Perform an on-page optimization

There is a lot you can do on the website itself to improve SEO ranking. Some important techniques are:

• Correct page structure: Follow a logical format like H1, H2, H3, etc., avoid duplicate content, use a search engine friendly URL, and use meta tags like "noindex" for pages that are not very useful so that they don't get indexed
• User friendliness: Avoid using irrelevant complex graphics that could slow down page loading. Make sure the desktop site works seamlessly on other devices as well. Do not keep more than four sub-categories (crawlers can easily find your page).
• Internal link: Internal links, d. H. Providing links to other pages in the same domain make the website easier for users to navigate and also define the structure of a website where the link juice is properly distributed. This will give you a good SEO ranking and conversions
• Call to Action: CTA is a way for the website to interact with the user. For example: "Buy Now", "Add to Cart", "Complete Profile", encourage users to engage with the site and get more hits

7. Perform an off-page optimization

Off-page optimization means SEO outside the website. It does this by linking externally with other websites so that users know that your website is extremely important. The best examples are influencer marketing and social media marketing – both of which are out of our control, but extremely powerful. Google measures factors such as the quality and quantity of backlinks in its ranking algorithm. Suppose there are two travel websites with equally good content – the one with more authentic backlinks and better online reputation gets a better SEO ranking.

8. Perform a technical search engine optimization

Technical SEO is a little tricky – it's about having a website that is fast, crawlable, and secure. For technical search engine optimization, you should ensure the following:

• Make sure your website is crawlable and indexable
• A sitemap should be a proper XML document that contains new pages and canonical versions of the URL and that follows the sitemap protocol. You can create an XML sitemap with the Yoast SEO plugin.
• Make sure your website is cell phone compatible
• The website should be quick and responsive. Google's PageSpeed ​​Insights tool will give you a rating based on the speed of your website.
• Make sure there is no duplicate content – Google doesn't like this!

9. Do local SEO

Local search engine optimization refers to optimizing your digital presence and getting better results with local search queries. For example, if someone searches for “furniture store near me,” they shouldn't get results for the entire city – the results should be local. You must have noticed the "Snack Pack" results provided by Google – with ratings, location, distance, opening and closing hours, etc. These are the top three local business listings. To do this, you need to add local keywords such as "Xyz furniture store location", "Xyz furniture near me", "Xyz store in Seattle", "Reliable furniture store in Seattle", and so on.

A great way to know all of the keywords is with Google auto-complete:

Quotes (online mentions of your business) are another top local ranking factor as people can search for your business on other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. Accurate quotes can help more people find your company quickly.

10. Monitor the progress

Google is constantly changing its algorithms. This means that you should keep your website up to date and check that it is still ranking well. If not, you'll need to revise the navigation, update relevant keywords, update the content, provide more backlinks, do SEO technical audits, etc. Even when things are going well, it's good to improvise every now and then to keep things that way You are!

Conclusion

SEO is not a one-time thing. If you thought you had to fill your page with keywords, you were wrong all along (and me, too, a long time ago!). You should constantly revise and innovate your SEO strategy over time to align it with the needs of the searcher. Sum up,

• Keep the website content relevant and up to date
• Use the most effective keywords, but don't use your page with them
• Build backlinks
• Use rank trackers to monitor ranking and backlinks
• Conduct regular audits to optimize the content of your website
• In the end, informative content will sell – so keep quality content!

Don't worry about doing it all at once. Take it slow and you will get there.