Many people believe that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is difficult unless you are a professional.
That is untrue…
SEO fundamentals are actually fairly straightforward and we will go through SEO fundamentals step-by-step in this article.
And if you run a website or blog, it’s definitely something worth studying about given that Google accounts for 57.8% of all the web traffic.
If you still believe that mastering the fundamentals won’t help you rank, think again.
Knowing the fundamentals of SEO can definitely help you succeed because the majority of people who manage websites seem to have a limited understanding of it.
This article will provide you with a comprehensive overview of SEO and how you can use it to improve your website performance.
Table of Contents
What Is Organic Traffic and Why Is It Important?
First, let’s make sure we get the rudiments of SEO, such as its importance and how it stacks up against other marketing strategies.
Let’s start with an important definition: organic traffic.
Organic traffic indicates any traffic that comes from unpaid sources. The best example of organic traffic is visitors that reach your website through search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Why is organic traffic important?
Google’s organic results generate the majority of website traffic. To put it another way, organic search drives higher traffic than any of the other traffic sources put together.
Organic traffic can also reach your website from Social Media but it’s nothing compared to the amount of traffic you can get from search engines.
You may already be aware that search engines such as Google consider hundreds or thousands of signals when determining which pages to rank.
SEO is crucial for appearing higher in organic search results because it provides techniques to give those important signals to search engines.
What Are the Benefits of SEO?
The SEO benefit that gets the most attention is better rankings that contribute to an increase in traffic to your website.
SEO Increases Traffic
Ranking higher typically increases the amount of traffic to a website because the majority of users choose to select one of the top few search results.
Do you remember the last time you clicked on a search result on page 2 or 3?
SEO Generates Steady Visitors
Ranking well in search results typically generates an increase in traffic.
Also, it’s uncommon for channels like social media and email marketing to provide steady visitors and sudden increases in traffic.
Over time social media algorithms have changed to reduce the amount of organic traffic sent to external websites. The aim is to force business owners to use paid traffic on their Social Media platforms to drive traffic to their websites.
That’s why today it makes a lot more sense to put your efforts into organic traffic coming from search engines instead of expecting to receive organic traffic from Social Media.
It’s about investing your time in what can give you the best return.
Traffic coming from emails depends on the size of your email list and it’s very unlikely to suddenly increase unless you change something in your email marketing strategy.
SEO Drives “Free” Traffic
Search traffic, in contrast to paying for adverts, is “free.” That’s significant since search engine advertisements can be pricey.
Of course, paying for ads is more expensive than producing content which ranks in Google, but writing content and waiting for it to rank takes time.
In business, it’s always a balance between time and money.
How Do I Get My Website Listed On Google?
Although SEO can help you rank higher, you can’t rank well if Google isn’t even aware that your website even exists.
Google provides a tool called Google Search Console that you can use to let Google know about your website.
Google will inevitably locate your website on its own, but manual submission has a few significant advantages:
- Quicker Discovery – It may take a while for Google to find new websites because the majority of them lack any backlinks from existing websites.
- Make Your Website Better – Google Search Console offers suggestions about how to make your website better and more optimized.
Finding your sitemap is the first step in presenting your website to Google. Sitemaps are documents that contain a list of all the pages of a website you want to index.
Creating a new Google Search Console profile and submitting your sitemap constitute the second step.
This doesn’t imply you will quickly get to the top of search results with your website. It just implies that Google will be aware of your website and that now you can use SEO principles to increase the possibility of ranking higher.
If done correctly, SEO is a continuous process that raises your chances of success over time.
But how can you set your website up for SEO success?
Keep reading to find out.
Which Domain Name Is Best?
If you’ve already registered a domain, don’t be upset.
Most likely, it’s fine and won’t interfere with your SEO efforts.
But if you haven’t made a decision yet, it’s important to bear a few things in mind.
Don’t stress about inserting your keywords at first. Search engines can recognise your domain even if it isn’t londonitalianrestaurant.com.
Listed below are some elements of a successful domain:
- Give priority to a .com domain if possible. Today it’s getting harder to find a .com domain available but with a bit of creativity, you can find one that fits you.
- Is not localized if you have a worldwide target audience (e.g. don’t buy a .co.uk domain if your users are spread worldwide).
- It’s easy to read and remember.
- It represents your company (if this is for your business).
- It covers a wide enough niche if the domain is for your blog (e.g. avoid something like runningshoesforkids.com. It will limit you if at some point you want your blog to be about shoes for adults too).
- It doesn’t infringe any existing trademark.
To find available domains you can use this Google Domains search tool.
What Is the Best Platform to Create a Website or Blog?
Most people don’t start coding their website in CSS and HTML from scratch.
The quickest and easiest platform to create a website or blog is a CMS (Content Management System). It’s a platform that helps you build the overall structure of the website and then allows you to create pages and add posts or articles. One of the most famous CMS platforms is WordPress.
CMS software enables users with little to no coding experience to easily construct websites, manage content, and deal with technicalities that would be tedious without it.
CMS platforms come in two different flavors of hosting: hosted and self-hosted.
What Is The Difference Between Hosted and Self-Hosted Websites?
Hosted platforms do all tasks under a single roof. They host a website, offer pre-made designs that are simple to alter and install and enable code-free content creation and management. At the same time they can also be limited in the features they offer or they might ask to pay for installing additional plugins.
Self-hosted platforms also provide code-free content management and creation. The distinction is that you have to install the CMS and host it yourself. This provides a lot more flexibility and doesn’t limit you in what you can do and install.
Which platform type should you select?
A self-hosted, accessible platform like Bluehost allows you to install and manage your WordPress website at a very low price:
- It is adaptable because open-source code can be altered as you wish, and there is a sizable development community that is intimately familiar with the platform.
- Millions of ready-made plugins, and thousands of SEO plugins can expand its functionality, making it extendable.
However, a hosted option of WordPress can be a better choice if you place a high importance on support and ease of use.
But remember that with a hosted solution you can be limited in what you can do without paying for additional plugins.
How Does SEO Impact User Experience?
Google ranks websites that provide users with a satisfying experience. A website should be created with the users in mind, and any optimization efforts should be directed toward improving the user experience.
SEO In Practice
You ought to have a solid foundation for SEO success by this point. Here, we’ll concentrate on the fundamentals and take a broad perspective to help you comprehend why each component of SEO is so crucial and how everything works together.
Keyword Research
Finding out what your consumers are looking for, the quantity of traffic certain phrases can bring your way, and how challenging it could be to rank for them are all part of the process of conducting keyword research.
The first stage in the keyword research analysis is to research the sort of things your prospective clients are looking for.
You cannot even start to design web pages that will appear in search results and draw useful traffic unless you are aware of this.
Identify Prospective Traffic
Almost all keyword research tools display the approximate total search volumes for keywords they uncover.
The proportional traffic potential of terms can typically be estimated using monthly search volume.
In general, pages focusing on high-volume keywords will frequently send more website visitors than pages concentrating on low-volume keywords.
As you can imagine, search phrases with high-volume are usually more competitive than the ones with low-volume. This is something you have to take into account especially if your website or blog is quite new.
Ranking Difficulty Check
It won’t always be simple to rank for a keyword, even if it seems related to your industry and has a lot of potential visitors.
There are many factors that affect a keyword’s ranking difficulty, but the most significant one is probably the quantity of relevant, well-known websites pointing to the top-ranked pages.
A solid indication that the content is of excellent quality is if other well-known websites on the subject link to that page.
Final Thoughts
Now you’ve got some of the basics of SEO, you’ll need to make sure you learn how to continue optimizing your content for web rankings.
To do this, you’ll need to keep track of your SEO success using analytics solutions such as Google Analytics and other SEO reporting tools.
SEO can really increase traffic to your website, but you’ll need to spend some time learning how to utilize it successfully.
It will be time well spent. You are building knowledge that will make your website or blog successful in the long term!
I’m a blogger and entrepreneur. I want to help you in your journey to build your business online.
