Learn SEO: A Complete Guide to SEO for Beginner

SEO stands for”search engine optimization”. It helps you get a better rank in the search engine. If you are a beginner or do not know anything about SEO, then you are in the right place.

In this article, I’m going to share the ultimate SEO guide for beginners.

What is SEO

SEO is one of the strategies and techniques that help you achieve a high rank in search results (Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines) and increase the number of visitors to your website.

SEO is not difficult. If you follow certain things and tips, then you can take your website to the first page of the search result like Google and get more organic traffic.

When we googling by typing any keyword phrase, Google shows result related to that search. These results come from all different websites. The website we see at the top in the search result, this means, SEO of that website is very good and that website has done SEO very well.

In simple words, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps you get No.1 rank in Google search.

Why is SEO Important

SEO is used to improve the website’s search ranking. Suppose I created a website and published good quality content but did not do proper SEO then my website will not be able to rank in SERPs and it would be considered worthless.

If you do not optimize your site for SEO, and when the user searches for anything then the search engine will not be able to list your site in search results. This means it can be very difficult to get traffic to your website without SEO.

When you implement SEO on your website, you will not see results immediately, for that you have to be patient and hard work.

How Many Types of SEO

Above, I told you the importance and benefits of SEO. Now, I will tell you how many types of SEO are there.

There are two types of SEO,

1. On Page SEO – To get a better rank in search engines we optimize content quality, keyword, title, tags etc is called on-page optimization.
2. Off page SEO – In this SEO process, link building and promotions are included.

Here are some quick tips about on-page SEO,

• Focus on content quality
• Use SEO-Friendly URLs – Make your URL short and readable.
• Start Title With Keyword.
• Add Modifiers To Your Title such as “2019”, “best”, “guide”, “checklist”, “fast” etc.
• Use Responsive Design (make your site mobile friendly).
• Use Outbound Links (External Links).
• Use Internal Links.
• Improve your Website loading speed.
• Use long tail keyword and related keyword.
• Optimize your image size. Do not forget to rename the image and add your target keyword to your image alt text.

Here are some working tips on Off-Page SEO,

• Build Links through Guest Posting and Email Outreach.
• Submit Your Articles to High-Quality Niche Directories.
• Improve your social media signals.
• Join question-answer site like Quora.
• Comment on another popular website.

Two More Techniques in SEO

1. White Hat SEO technique – The techniques used to make your website search engine friendly is called white hat SEO. And all SEO Professionals recommend it.
2. Black Hat SEO technique – There are many Blackhat SEO techniques that are considered incorrect by SEO professionals and it is also wrong to use in SEO like Keyword Stuffing, Meta Tag Stuffing, Duplicate Websites and content, Low-Quality Pages etc.

Some More Facts About SEO

SEO is the most popular topic in blogging and many people and companies offer SEO services. If you want to make your blog or website successful then SEO can help you a lot.

To become a successful blogger, SEO is very important with high-quality contents because it is the key to your success.

SEO Best Practices to Get Better Rank

This step helps you increase your Google ranking so that your website can get more organic traffic.

1. Submit your blog to Google and Top Search Engines Webmaster Tools

If you have started a new blog or website, first submit it to all popular Search Engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. This helps you to analyze how your site is performing in that search engines.

Also, if your site has an error, it will notify you.

2. Choose the right keyword for your blog post

Selecting the right keywords is the most important task. Because it is the most important component of SEO.

However, there is no such tool in the market that will tell you – this is the best keyword. When you choose keywords, you have to take care of many things that I’m going to tell you.

• Search Volume – This is very important. The more people search for a keyword, the more traffic you can get.
• Long Tail Keywords – If your site is brand new or you want low competition keywords, then Long Tail Keywords can be effective.
• Competition – Always select low competition keywords for your content. This increases the likelihood of your content ranking higher in results.
• Related Keywords – Use Related Keywords to optimize your content better. It helps Google better understand what your content is about.

There are many great tools and websites that can help you find good keywords for your article.

• Answer the Public – Answer the Public finds keywords using Google and Bing Search and predicts the best keyword for you. This tool offers a unique proposition and helps to find long tail keywords easily.
• SEMrush – This is one of my most favourite tools that help keep an eye on your competitor, along with keyword research. However, its free version comes with very limited options. Its premium version starts from $ 99.95/month.
• Google Auto-Suggest – Enter your main keyword in Google search. This will start showing related keywords. As you can see in the screenshot below.

• Google Keyword Planner – It is the best and free keyword research tool developed by Google. This tool helps you to find any type of keyword, whether it is a long tail keyword or anything. In addition, shows monthly searches, CPC and more.
• Google related keywords search – This trick can also be helpful for you. When you search for anything in Google, after the search result you see some keywords. You can use them as long tail keywords in your article.

• Ubersuggest – Developed by Neilpatel, this is a very good and popular keyword research tool. Using it, you can easily get good keywords for your blog post and it is also very easy to use.
• Ahrefs – Ahrefs is a premium Keyword research tool that helps you find good keywords for your website and monitors the competitors.
• Soovle – It is also a very popular tool that helps find long tail keywords.

3. Use keywords in the Proper places

After selecting keywords according, use them like this:

• Use Keyword in the Page Title.
• Use Keyword in Meta description (Once).
• Use Keyword once in first paragraph.
• Use keywords in the Headings.
• Do not use keywords more often in content. Keep keyword density -2% – 2.5%.
• Use the keyword in the URL.

4. Submit your Sitemap to Google

In addition, if your site is very large, you’ll need a sitemap.

Sitemap is an .xml file. This file contains URLs from your website that tell search engines about all the pages on the website.

This helps Google and other search engines better crawl your website and understand website structure easily.

Why you should create a Sitemap:

• There are too many internal links on your site.
• If your site is brand new and has few external links to it.
• Your website has dynamic pages.
• Your site has a large archive of content pages that are isolated or not well linked to each other.

How to Create XML Sitemap for WordPress

There are many plugins and tools to create an XML Sitemap. You can use any of them. Here I’ll tell you three method:

a. Create Sitemap Using Yoast SEO Plugin

If you are already using the Yoast plugin, you can easily create an XML Sitemap. First, navigate to General >> Features >> XML Sitemaps >> ?. You can see in the screenshot below.

This will redirect you to the XML Sitemap page. Copy the URL from the address bar of your browser. This will be your Sitemap and will look like this,

https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

b. Create Sitemap Using Jetpack

Go to Jetpack >> Settings >> Traffic and enable Generate XML Sitemaps option. Once activated, Jetpack will generate two different sitemaps.

Your sitemap will be – https://yoursitename.com/sitemap.xml.

c. Create Sitemap Using Google XML Sitemaps

Just install and activate the plugin then click on Settings >> XML-Sitemap. Its default settings work perfect for most sites. But if you like, you can customize it.

Now we have a sitemap let’s submit it to the search console.

Log in to your Google Search Console account. In the left column, click on the ‘Sitemaps’ option, then paste the last part of the URL (sitemap_index.xml or sitemap.xml) and click on the Submit button.

It may take some time to show the index status. If you use lot of images and videos on your site, you can also create an image sitemap and video sitemap.

5. Optimize images

An image tell a thousand words

But optimizing images is very important. Use the correct name and alt tag for your image, this makes your article more SEO friendly. Here is a guide – How to Optimize Images for SEO

When you upload images to your post editor, you can easily add ALT Text to your image. You can see in screenshots below.

But one thing, you can not use Google Images. They can be copyrighted and later copyright issues can arise.

There are many websites available in the market (FreeDigitalPhotos, MorgueFile, Pixabay, Pexels etc) which offer free stock images.

6. Write Quality Content

Content is King

Quality content improves both your site traffic and ranking.

If your content is not useful, visitors will leave your site immediately. As a result, your site’s bounce rate will increase.

Always pay attention to write unique and quality contents. Also, your articles should be interesting so that people read your blog full of joy.

7. Write Lengthy Blog Post

Compared to short content, long content performs better in search engines.

A blog post should have at least 1000 words. But keep one thing in mind, do not write nonsense things to increase your content length. Because After reading your content, visitors will not like to come back to your site again.

A long blog post has many advantages. You can optimize your focus keyword well, visitors will spend more time on your site etc.

8. Write content regularly

Google gives more priority to blogs that publish posts regularly. This enhances both your ranking and blog reader.

But your content should be informative and useful. Visitors like to read blogs that publish content daily with new and unique ideas.

If you publish 4 posts a week but do not publish anything in next week, then your strategy is worse than publishing two posts in a week.

9. Internal Link

Linking one page to another on the same domain is called internal linking.

It makes your content more useful and relevant for visitors. Furthermore, it has many many benefits,

• Passes Link juice.
• Boost Pageviews.
• Reduce Bounce rate.
• Make your content more informative and user-friendly.
• Google crawl your site faster and better way.
• Improve your website SEO.

10. Share your content on Social Media Sites

In today’s competitive times, we do not have to wait for people to find our articles, we have to reach our content to them.

There are lots of social networking sites where people spend more time like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn Etc. So after publishing your content, share on all these platforms.

This strategy helps to bring lots of traffic to your blog and reflects the user’s engagement.

11. Create high quality Backlinks

Backlinks can make a huge change in your website traffic and ranking.

Backlinks are very old Google ranking factor. It helps to increase your website’s organic traffic and domain authority. But bad/spammy/buy/low-quality backlinks greatly influences the website ranking. Here is a detailed guide – How to Create Quality Backlinks (Updated)

12. Speed up your Blog

Faster loading gives better ranking and better user experience to visitors.

No one likes to visit slow loading websites. If your site takes too much time to load, then visitors will immediately leave your site. As a result, this will increase the bounce rate of your website which will negatively impact your website SEO.

And do you know? Speed is a Google ranking factor. So a faster loading site gets a better rank in Google search. That’s why it is very important to improve website loading speed.

Here are quick tips to improve the website loading speed

• Upgrade to PHP 7.2.
• Optimize your image size.
• Optimize your Database
• Keep only useful plugins.
• Delete unwanted media.
• Minify CSS and JS Files.
• Use the best cache plugin.
• Minimize Redirects.
• Use a lightweight theme.
• Use CDN.
• Use good web host.

13. Make your website responsive to all devices

Make your site mobile friendly.

Because, most people use mobile or tablet to search for anything on the Internet. That’s why Google is using mobile friendliness as a ranking factor to improve the mobile user experience. [How to Make Your WordPress Website Mobile-Friendly]

If your blog or website is not mobile responsive then Google will reduce your site ranking for mobile search.

To check whether your site is mobile-friendly or not, you can use Google’s Mobile Testing Tool. If your site is not mobile friendly, then you need to install a responsive WordPress theme on your site.

14. Set Nofollow Tag for Affiliate Links and Untrusted Links

Set rel = “nofollow” tags for affiliate links and untrusted links in your content. Otherwise it can greatly harm your site’s ranking.

If you use the plugin to manage your blog’s Affiliate Links, you can easily set the No-Follow attribute for your affiliate links. Here is a guide – How to Add Nofollow Link in WordPress

15. Increase your site’s Domain Authority

Domain authority is a metric developed by Moz. It reflects your site reputation. Higher domain authority sites get a higher rank in search engines.

Domain authority is built on a scale of 1 to 100. You can check your site DA using Moz’s free tool – Open Site Explorer.

Quick tips to increase Domain Authority

• Publish quality content.
• On-Page SEO – Plays Vital Role in Increasing DA
• Make Internal Linking.
• Create high-quality backlinks.
• Disavow bad links.
• Be patient and let your domain be old.

16. Add External Link in your content

Adding high-quality external links is also beneficial for SEO. Also, it makes your content more useful and relevant. And helps search engines to better understand what the content is about.

But when you link the external site to your content, you have to take care of many things – the content of that site should be relevant or be useful, that site should not be spammy, its DA and PA should also be good etc.

Always open external links in new tabs/windows. This strategy helps to reduce your website bounce rate. Here is a guide – How to Open External Links in a New Window in WordPress

17. Update your outdated content

If you have a high-traffic old post, then update it with the latest information. This increases user engagement on your posts and reduces bounce rate. [How to Update Old Blog Posts and Why]

After updating your content, share it with a new reader and on the social media site.

18. Install SSL on your site

Google just wants a more secure web. Therefore, Chrome 68 and above versions are marking all non-HTTPS sites as “Not Secure”.

HTTPS enabled sites rank better in SERPs. Here is a guide – How to Properly Move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS

19. Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing makes your content unnatural and put bad user experience on readers. Keep keyword density 1.5% – 2% in your content. Also, use the related keyword.

You think filling keywords on the blog post will drive more traffic to your blog, but it has the opposite effect. This strategy leads your site to penalty.

20. Use SEO friendly theme

Choose the theme carefully for your blog or website. Coding of all WordPress themes is not good. If you choose the wrong theme for your site, it affects both your page loading speed and SEO.

Here’s a list of some of the best SEO Friendly WordPress Themes. All these themes are fully SEO optimized and designed with Well coding.

21. Use SEO Plugin

SEO plugin makes your WordPress site even more SEO friendly. And gives full control over indexing. Also, allows to write a custom title and meta description for your content.

There are so many SEO plugins available in the market for WordPress. But I recommend you Yoast SEO.

Key features

• You can change the SEO title and meta description of the post.
• You can add focus keyword
• Create XML Sitemaps
• It also includes .htaccess and robots.txt editor
• You can use Title and Meta description for taxonomies (category and tags).
• [Premium] Redirect manager
• [Premium] Automatic internal linking suggestions
• [Premium] Synonyms & related keyphrases
• [Premium] offers News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO and WooCommerce SEO extensions

If you are an SEO beginner, then this is the best plugin for you. It helps to understand on-Page optimization (Suggestion for onpage SEO).

22. Set Noindex for category and tag page

If you index categories and tags pages in the search engine, then these pages can generate a duplicate content issue. As a result, your ranking may be reduce. Even Google can penalize your site.

Hope you found this SEO guide useful and comprehensive! Don’t forget to share!