SEO Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to SEO (2022)

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of optimizing a website for Google and other search engines. It’s essential for small business owners and bloggers who want to make their websites more visible online and want to attract more visitors.

SEO can be confusing for some people, so we decided to write this guide to teach you the basics of SEO so you can start taking steps to improve your website performance. This is not an exhaustive guide on SEO and all the tips and tricks for making your website a success, but it will cover SEO basics and should give you a solid foundation on how SEO works.

Who is this guide for?

This SEO Basics guide is for everyone who has their own site or blog and wants to learn the basics of SEO. By reading this guide, I guarantee you will learn how SEO works and why it’s important for growing online authority and traffic.

Yes, SEO can be confusing at first, but this guide will teach you the basics so you can start improving your online presence immediately.

Useful SEO Vocabulary

Here are some common words used in the world of SEO and their meanings for reference. Feel free to come back to this list if you see a concept in this guide that you don’t understand.

1 – SEO:

Search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing a website for search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

2 – Keywords:

Keywords are the words and phrases that you want your website to rank for in search engine results pages (SERPs).

3 – Organic search results:

Organic search results are unpaid search results that are displayed below the paid ads. Organic Google search results are the most coveted because they don’t cost money.

4 – Paid search results:

Paid search results are the sponsored or paid ads that are displayed at the top and bottom of a SERP.

5 – SERP:

A SERP is a search engine results page, which displays the list of websites that match the user’s search query.

6 – Indexing:

Indexing is the process of adding a website to a search engine’s database so that it can be displayed on search engine results pages.

7 – Ranking:

The ranking is the position of a website on a SERP, relative to other websites that match the same keyword(s). The goal is to get your content ranked in the top three positions of the SERPS where most of the search traffic goes.

8 – Backlinks:

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website. The more quality backlinks you have, the higher you will rank for your keywords.

9 – Anchor text:

Anchor text is the text used as a hyperlink, and it’s typically used to describe the destination of the link.

10 – On-page SEO:

On-page SEO refers to all of the SEO practices that you can do on your website to improve your ranking in SERPs.

11 – Off-page SEO:

Off-page SEO refers to all of the SEO practices that you can do outside of your website to improve your ranking in SERPs.

12 – Authority site:

An authority site is a website that is trusted and respected by Google and it typically has high rankings for many keywords. These sites are perfect link partners for white hat link building.

13 – Web crawler:

A web crawler, also known as a spider or bot, is a program that visits websites and indexes their content so that it can be displayed on search engine results pages.

14 – Spamming:

Spamming is the act of publishing low-quality or irrelevant content with the intent of increasing traffic to your website or blog. Google will penalize your site for SPAM content so don’t do it.

15 – White hat SEO:

White hat SEO is the practice of optimizing a website using only safe and approved SEO methods.

16 – Meta-Description

A meta description is a summary of a website’s content that is used to describe the website on search engine results pages. The meta description is not a ranking factor, but it can help improve click-through rates (CTRs) from SERPs.

17 – SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

SEM is the practice of using paid advertising to improve the visibility of a website. This can include paid search results, banner ads, and social media advertising.

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

SEO is a short form for “Search Engine Optimization”. SEO is the practice of improving your website, web pages, and online content so that it ranks higher on search engine results pages.

We will discuss how search engines work later in this guide but SEO makes it easier for people to find your website online, which can help you grow your business or blog.

Analogy: SEO is like a group of fishermen (business owners/bloggers) who are trying to catch the biggest and most fish in the lake (search traffic). They use different techniques (SEO), lures, and bait to try and attract the biggest fish. Some fishermen use artificial bait, while others use live bait. Some fishermen use large nets, while others use small nets. The goal is to catch as many fish as possible.

Why is SEO important?

SEO is important to a website because it helps increase organic traffic. Organic traffic is the traffic that comes to your website from a Google search, and it’s the most valuable type of traffic because it’s free.

SEO can help you improve your website’s ranking in search engines, which can result in more organic traffic. SEO can also help you improve your website’s visibility online, which can result in more leads and sales.

How search engines work

Search engines find web pages by crawling the Internet and following links from one page to another. They use a variety of methods to index and rank websites.

One of the most important methods is crawling. Crawling is the process of visiting all the pages on a website to collect the data that is used to index the website.

Once a website has been indexed, it can be found on search engine results pages (SERPs). The position of a website in SERPs is determined by its ranking, which is a measure of how relevant a website is to a particular search query.

The higher a website’s ranking, the more likely it is to be clicked on by users. SEO can help improve your website’s ranking and visibility in SERPs, which can result in more organic traffic and leads. You can see how you are doing in the SERPs by using tools like Google Search Console, and Google Analytics which every website should get access to.

Let’s take a closer look at what they do:

Crawling

Search engine crawlers are programs that visit websites to collect information that is used to index the website. Crawlers collect data about the pages on a website, including the titles, descriptions, and keywords.

Crawlers also collect data about all the links on a website, including internal links, the destination page, and the anchor text.

Indexing

When a website is crawled, it gets indexable. Google is interested in understanding these documents and cataloging them in the index. A search engine index is just a massive database containing the crawled websites, and is meant solely for understanding and using them for search results.

Picking the results

After a search query is completed, the searcher scans the search database for the best results. Search results are sometimes referred to as SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages. Below are some more details on Google’s search algorithm.

Google algorithm

The Google algorithm is a complex set of rules that determines how websites are ranked in search engine results pages (SERPs). The algorithm takes into account a variety of factors, including the website’s content, its popularity, and its relevance to the search query.

The algorithm is constantly changing, and SEO professionals must continually update their strategies to ensure their websites rank high in SERPs.

You may be asking yourself why SEO strategists focus on Google so much and not competitors like Yahoo or Bing. Here are some interesting statistics that illustrate why Google is so important:

• Google handles over 90% of all internet search queries
• Google handles over 8 billion searches per day
• Over 80% of people who use Google to search, use it more than 3 times per day

Basic SEO Strategies

Now that we know what SEO is and how important Google is in the equation, let’s take a look at some basic components of every SEO strategy.

1. SEO Audit

An SEO audit is a process of evaluating a website to determine how SEO-friendly it is. The audit can identify areas that need improvements, such as the titles, meta descriptions, and keywords on the website. It can also identify areas that need more optimization, such as the website’s structure and the content on the pages.

Here is a link to a great free SEO audit tool from MOZ.com

2. Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of identifying the best keywords to target for your website or blog. Your target keyword should match search queries for customers who would be interested in your product or service.

The relevant keywords are usually documented on a keyword worksheet and used for content creation. This research is typically done using a keyword research tool that can tell you a lot about your target keywords including the organic search volume and ranking difficulty.

For Example: If you’re a business that sells electric scooters, you want to focus your keyword research efforts on keywords that customers who are looking for information on electric scooters would type into Google. Important keywords for your business might include:

• electric scooter
• electric scooter for kids
• electric scooters for adults
• best electric scooter

Once you have your keywords, you can start creating content in the form of a landing page, product page, or blog post focused on your keywords.

If you want to learn more about keyword research and some free keyword research tools, read my blog post on keyword research here.

Here is a link to a free keyword research tool from MOZ.com

3. Link Building

Link building is the process of acquiring links from other websites. The goal is to obtain quality links from high-quality, high-authority websites that are relevant to the business. Quality links can help improve a website’s ranking in SERPs.

Building links is one of the most challenging aspects of SEO because links are valuable so sites are not usually willing to give them to anyone.

Note: Some SEO experts say that internal linking (internal links that link from one piece of content to another on your site) are just as important if not more than getting incoming links from other sites. Don’t forget your internal links!

4. SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriting is the art of writing content that is both SEO-friendly and appealing to humans. The goal is to write content that will rank high on Google while also attracting visitors to the website. Creating content that Google finds useful and engaging is the secret to good SEO copywriting.

SEO Basics: FAQ

Is SEO important?

Yes, SEO is extremely important. It can help you rank higher in search engine results pages for your keywords, which means you’ll get more traffic to your website or blog.

SEO also helps to improve the overall quality of your website’s content and user experience which is important to Google.

Does SEO work?

SEO is the process of optimizing a website for Google search to earn higher web traffic levels and improve the visibility of the site.

While SEO is not a Guaranteed Method to make a website appear first in search engine results pages (SERPs), it’s an important part of any comprehensive online marketing strategy.

SEO should be considered alongside other tactics like paid advertising (Google Ads), social media outreach, and email marketing. A well-executed SEO strategy can improve a site’s visibility and organic web traffic levels, helping it to achieve its business goals.

Can I learn to do SEO on my own?

Yes! SEO is not difficult to learn and there are many amazing resources that you can use to improve your knowledge.

Most of the time, businesses hire people to create an SEO strategy and execute it for them because it saves them time and money.

If you want to learn how to do your SEO, here is a great resource for learning everything SEO. It’s called SEO Workbook 2022 written by Jason McDonald.

What should I do first in SEO?

Once you’ve decided to optimize your site and content the first step is doing an SEO audit. There are varying degrees of SEO audits but typically this audit will take a look under the hood of your site to see if any issues are present that can prevent it from ranking on Google.

What is technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to optimizing your website so that it can be found and accessed by Google crawlers. This includes making sure that all the content on the website is indexable by Google (SEO-friendly content), optimizing the website’s speed and performance (including making sure it’s mobile-friendly), and fixing any errors in the HTML code that could prevent Google from indexing the site.

Technical SEO is a critical part of any SEO strategy and should be considered alongside other on-page and off-page SEO tactics.

Note: Google is putting a lot more emphasis on mobile-friendly content as a ranking factor since more and more searches are done by mobile users. Take the time to make sure your site’s pages and content are optimized for mobile devices.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is the term used to describe SEO tactics that are frowned upon by Google and other search engines. These tactics usually involve some type of deception or manipulation to improve a website’s ranking in SERPs.

Common black hat SEO tactics include keyword stuffing, cloaking, link spamming, and article spinning. While these techniques can sometimes produce short-term results, they are often penalized by Google which can lead to a significant drop in website traffic.

It’s important to note that not all SEO tactics that fall into the “black hat” category are against the rules. However, it’s generally advisable to avoid any SEO tactic that could be seen as deceptive or manipulative. If you’re not sure whether a particular SEO technique is safe to use, consult with an experienced SEO professional before trying it out.

Conclusion

At first, SEO can seem daunting and difficult to execute, but it’s not as complicated as it seems. By following the basic principles we’ve outlined in this guide, you’ll be on your way to optimizing your website for Google or at least know how to speak to someone who specializes in SEO about what you want.

If you’re just beginning to start your SEO journey and have questions about how to get started, or you need help implementing the basics of SEO, contact us today.

We’d be happy to chat with you about your business and how we can improve your website ranking and visibility.

Thanks for reading!