What is SEO and How it works (7-Steps SEO Tutorial)?

Want to get a good ranking for your business website? Well! Who doesn’t? People usually get frightened off by the complicated optimization concepts and technical jargon like crawlers, backlinks, indexing, black-hat, white-hat… the list goes on. Sounds like you? If so, don’t worry! You are at the right place. I am here to prepare you for your first steps in SEO with easy to understand language and explanations.In the blog further, I will talk about SEO, its elements and importance with an SEO tutorial for beginners. Consumers search the product online before making a purchase. Brands that don’t understand the importance of SEO will miss out on a great deal of recognition and value that they could add to their business. Modern consumers consider the digital market as an essential part of their shopping experience. Regardless of buying the products in person or online, they use the internet to get to know more about the product and learn more about the businesses available. Being that the reason, the digital marketplace, can never be overlooked by any business.

What is SEO and How it works?

Search Engine Optimization is a strategy used to increase the number of visitors to a website. It is used to make some changes to your website that make it more attractive and rank high in the search results of certain phrases and keywords on search engines including Yahoo, Google, Bing, and many others. By implementing effective SEO strategies, website owners can improve their online presence, increase organic traffic to their site effectively, and ultimately grow their business.(Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.) Organizations go through the SEO process to make sure that their business website pages have the potential to rank in search engine search results. The strategy performs high-ranking placement activity on the target webpages.(Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.) Search Engine Optimization contains the quality of traffic, quantity of traffic and organic results. All the search engines have the same goal of showing the most relevant results of the user queries. You search something on Google or any other search engine, it comes up with multiple results and you go for the suitable one. Have you ever thought about what is behind those magical links and results? Let’s find out how SEO works!Every search engine including Yahoo, Google and Bing have a different algorithm, we will talk about Google. The entire process of how a Google works, split into three parts as mentioned below:

1. Crawling

   Google starts with a single webpage, searches for links and follows to search the same on others to discover other webpages. It keeps on searching for links on one page to others and discovers almost everything on the web. It uses a program called ‘crawl’ to perform this activity. The tool makes it easier for the webpages to be crawled.

2. Indexing

   After the search engine discovers the webpages, it indexes the extracted data in Google Database to show the same in results. The kind of data search engine collects, includes the date and time the page was created, its link, title, main keywords, meta and description and other details required, based on that search engine’s algorithm.

3. Returning Queries

   When you search a query on Google, it goes through the entire database to find the webpages related to your query and displays them as search results. The relevancy of the results is based on the search engine’s algorithm.

Essential Elements of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO includes different elements and it is crucial to know what the elements are and how they work to understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization. SEO helps the businesses in making their websites more visible and increase the traffic and number of opportunities to convert prospects into customers.(Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.) Additionally, SEO is also an effective tool for building relationships with prospects, brand awareness and positioning yourself as a trustworthy and authoritative expert in your business field. Some major elements of Search Engine Optimization are as follows:

• Keywords Optimization

  It has been a long time ago when keywords were the only SEO technique that was used, but that doesn’t make it less important. They are being used in a different way today, they need to be chosen wisely, carefully and judiciously for the content in order to be effective. Let us all know first, what keywords are! Keywords are the phrases and words that the prospects use while searching content online and brands use the same to connect with the prospects looking for the products and services. While checking for the keywords, it is important to look for the ones that have high search rates. There are three kinds of keywords – short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords, and local keywords. Keywords can be used to make changes to your links, titles and other SEO elements.

• Content Organization

  Content is an important element of SEO. It works as a source to reach out and keep the audience engaged. You can generate and release the content related to your own industry. For example, you own a restaurant, and you want to increase the visibility, you publish a series of blogs about the type of food you offer in your restaurant including cooking tips or a list of recipes. When someone will look for good restaurants, the blog will come up.

• Site Construction

  The site location should be easily accessible and registered on the internet. Google and its algorithm also search for the location of the site. Google Maps has become a popular app for navigation purposes. If the organization has a clear site map it makes it easy for Google to navigate to it. Easy navigation and a clear site map also contribute to better user experience. Users become more engaged in the content if they get to move throughout your site easily. It increases the possibility of them getting converted to a paying customer.

• Mobile Optimization

  Mobile optimization is one of the major elements of Search Engine Optimization. Google has observed that users use their smartphones more than the desktops to make a search for any product or information. In return, Google has improved its requirements to update mobile optimization. Google released its Mobilegeddon update and as per the update, the websites that are not mobile compatible will be left behind in rankings.

• Search Engine Marketing

  Search Engine Marketing can be defined as the paid marketing efforts that include things like Google AdWords, native ads, pay-per-click, social media ads, display ads, Google shopping ads, and many more.

Importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is good for your brand promotion. Users trust search engines and ranking higher on the search engine increases user’s trust for the business website. The higher you rank on the search engine the more you will be ahead of your competitors you can consider partnering with a skilled SEO company or embark on the journey yourself. Some benefits of search engine optimization are mentioned below:

• Rankings and Visibility

  SEO increases the visibility of the brand. It makes it easier for the prospects to search the brand name and find the brand products. Visibility is related to ranking. The higher rank you get on a search engine, the more your brand name will be visible to the users and they will click through your site.

• More Web Traffic

  Building ranking on the search engines drives more traffic to your business website. SEO technique not only optimizes your titles but also improves meta descriptions too so that the topic becomes better and clear. Optimized aspects of your website will help consumers understand that you are there to address their needs. Once you will get the stronger site rankings, it will increase the traffic rates and there will be more people coming to your website.

• Brand Building

  A strong online presence helps the organization build trust with prospects. When people recognize your brand name, colors, and logo with a positive reputation, it helps you to increase market share and build your brand.

• Business Growth

  In the case of traditional marketing, businesses remain limited to immediate geographic boundaries. Brands promote their products with the radio broadcast, direct mail, and billboards, that stay confined only to people living in that specific area. SEO gives you a chance to expand your business beyond your region. You can offer your products and services across the country or even internationally.

How to Optimize Website for Google?

(Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.) As we know, webpages get crawled and indexed in the search engine. There is something that we can do to make this process easy-going, optimize the websites for search engine search. The process can be divided into 2 categories – On-page SEO and Off-page SEO. On-page SEO contains the adjusting factors and elements of the website that helps Google understand what the webpages are all about. On the flip side, Off-page SEO contains the ranking factors of the website that creates a lot of backlinks and makes the search engine think that your page is trustworthy.

SEO Tutorial for Beginners

As you have learned about what Search Engine Optimization is and how is it important for your business, you should know what you can do to take advantage of optimizing your own business website.(Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.) Let’s begin with a few easy steps of Search Engine Optimization tutorial as stated below:

1. Generate Keywords

   People use different keywords to enter a query on a search engine. They phrase differently but asking for the same thing. It is important to find out the ways people are using to search for you. For example, you own a gym in San Francisco. People could search for ‘Best Gym in San Francisco’, ‘San Francisco Gym’ or ‘Gym near me’. You can either go for guesswork or using tools available online, some rank tracker and find out the keywords that most of the people are using to search for the same thing and create the content accordingly. Always choose keywords on a page-by-page basis!

2. Create content that searchers are looking for

   Optimize your content for the ‘search intent’! You don’t have to create or guess the search intent, just make a search for the keywords related to your business and its products and pick top results to check what people are looking for. Think about the topic of Gym, think of what people can search for this term. They could search for the best gym, the diet plans, effective exercises and many more. Type in all the possible terms in Google and check the results, you will find your keywords for the content.

3. Optimize Images

   Make sure you name all the images and have text on them. The name of the image shows up if the image fails to load. Optimize your images by using alt tags with descriptions. Google also understands the image better if you name it.

4. Get clicks with a compelling title

   Getting a better rank in Google searches is not the only task, but also you need the webpages to be clicked on by the searchers. Make the topics, meta and description click-worthy. For example, if we search for ‘diet plans to lose weight’, it came up with different titles and the first one would get a click for sure. You need to understand your target audience and know what matters to them as there is no exact science for writing a title tag.
You can follow the below-mentioned set of rules to get off on the right foot:
• Stay true to search intent
• Keep the title small and simple
• Make the content descriptive
• Include your unique selling point
• Include keywords

5. Keep URLs short and descriptive

   Keep the URLs short and sweet. URLs should be descriptive and include the topic-related information so that users click on that.

6. Content should be easy to read

   Make your content easy to read! Content should be properly structured and connected. Similarly, incorporating topical authority into your SEO strategy can significantly enhance the relevance and depth of your content, making it more appealing to both readers and search engines. You can optimize your title, images, and other things but user experience also matters. If your content is not easy-to-read, readers will leave and that too for good reason. Try to place your keywords in the headers, use proper formatting, simple language, and include images.

7. Get relevant and high-quality backlinks

   Backlinks are critical. They work as a referring domain for your webpage. The better you have the backlinks, the better ranking you will get in the search results.High-quality backlinks bring huge traffic to your website. There are multiple tactics that help you create backlinks such as broken link building, guest posting or going through your competitors’ webpages. You can also ask for the backlinks from the people you know professionally including your business partners, suppliers, clients, and agencies. For instance, obtaining High-quality backlinks from reputable sources can boost your site's credibility and search engine ranking

Conclusion

SEO is an undertaking that involves various techniques, practices, and tactics. SEO is the utmost importance for every business that wants to be recognized online. SEO, especially international SEO, can help businesses create brand awareness, drive more traffic, improve customer experience and much more. That is the reason, digital marketers should be aware of what SEO is, how it can help businesses achieve goals. Go through Appy Pie Online Academy Course and learn more about SEO Checklist, tools and techniques required to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

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