SEO 101: Basic Principles and Tips
This post's topic will be beginner-friendly answers about what SEO is.
Lately, everyone might have heard something about SEO. Moreover, it’s not only about SEO. From time to time, everyone hears over and over again about SEO, SEM, PPC, Google Ads, Facebook Business Manager, etc. It’s okay to be confused!
In the end, everyone wants to grow their business in the digital world. People should accept that it’s not that easy. However, it’s also not impossible. Let’s start talking about SEO.
What is the SEO?
First of all, you may ask, ‘What is SEO?’ Search Engine Optimization is about getting your potential customers to find your website when they search for something relevant to your product or service. When users visit your website, you can measure your website traffic. Why is it important? More traffic means more conversions.
If you want to improve your website’s SEO performance, you need to check your website’s meta tags. They are coded in the <head> section. Thanks to meta tags, you can improve your website’s SEO performance, but you can also allow or disallow scanning of your website. If you see anything about ‘noindex’ in your meta tags on a page that you want indexed by any search engine tools, you need to remove it! Otherwise, your page won’t be indexed.
SEM VS SEO
Now, let’s assume you’ve checked your <head> section and there wasn’t any ‘noindex’ tag. There is another term that is often confused with SEO: SEM, Search Engine Marketing. SEM helps your website attract both organic and paid visitors. But, don’t have any doubts; it doesn’t mean that money is more significant than content. If you want to engage in SEM, you need to ensure that your website meets the standards recommended by search engines.
PPC
Another important term is PPC, Pay Per Click. As you might understand, you are charged for every click on your ads. If you want to engage in SEM, you should be careful about PPC.
Types of SEO
There are three types of SEO: technical SEO, on-site SEO, and off-site SEO.
- Technical SEO involves optimizing the technical aspects of your website, which can include images, fonts, third-party JavaScripts, etc.
- On-site SEO focuses on optimizing website content. It needs to be relevant to your target audience’s search terms.
- Off-site SEO involves anything that happens away from your website but contributes to increasing your SEO performance, such as backlinks.
Sitemap
A sitemap is significant for every web page. Thanks to the sitemap, search engine bots can find your website, crawl it, and index it! If you want your website to be indexed, you need to create a sitemap and add your important URLs to it.
If your website is made with Wordpress, there’s no need to worry about the sitemap; Wordpress already creates one for you!
If you have some trouble creating a sitemap, there are some tools available that can do it for you. For example, here is a link to a sitemap generator tool.
Robots.txt
Basically, robots.txt tells search engine tools which pages are available to crawl and which pages are not.
Some websites allow all agents to crawl their website and disallow special pages. However, some websites also disallow all agents to crawl their website and allow some special pages. It’s like the reverse. You can choose whichever fits your project. Frankly, both of them do the same thing.
On the other hand, you can access any website’s robots.txt file by adding /robots.txt after its domain. For example, you can access Adsby’s robots.txt file.
If you need more advices about creating robots.txt file, you can examine Semrush's article about it.
The other important thing to do after creating a robots.txt file is to check it. There are several tools available for this purpose. One of them is from a website dedicated to Technical SEO.
If your website is developed by WordPress, there’s no need to create one. WordPress already creates it!
Search Console & Bing WebMaster
Search Console is a web service which is developed by Google. You can check your website’s indexing status, search queries, crawling errors etc.
Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service provided by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. You can check your website’s index crawler, site’s performance, and a lot more.
Basically, these tools help webmasters see indexing results and errors about their pages to improve their SEO performance for Google & Bing.
These titles above are important for SEO. You can check your website to see which parts are optimized and which parts are not.
Conclusion
In conclusion, SEO is crucial for improving your website’s visibility and attracting potential customers. Understanding the basics of SEO, including technical aspects like meta tags and robots.txt, as well as on-site and off-site optimization, is essential. Tools like Sitemap generators, SEMrush, and Search Console/Bing Webmaster can aid in optimizing your website and tracking its performance. By staying informed and utilizing these resources, you can enhance your SEO efforts and ultimately grow your online presence.
🔥 Roast My Landing Page
Great post! I love how you easily explain SEO.
Thanks, I glad to see you like my post :)
SEO is very important for a website. I am very happy to read your article and learn good knowledge!
Thank you!
Thanks a lot
Great guide there. Well explained and simplified
Thank you, I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed my post!
Understanding the importance of SEO.
Keyword research and targeting.
On-page optimization.
Information architecture.
SEO content and link building.
Technical SEO.
Tracking and measuring SEO results.
SEO miscellaneous (mobile, international, local)
Keyword Research: Identify relevant keywords for your content to enhance search engine visibility.
Content Quality: Create high-quality, valuable content that addresses user intent and provides useful information.
Meta Tags Optimization: Optimize title tags and meta descriptions with relevant keywords to improve click-through rates.
Mobile-Friendly Design: Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly, as mobile optimization is crucial for SEO.
Backlink Building: Develop a strong backlink profile by obtaining reputable links, as they play a significant role in search engine ranking algorithms.
Nice primer! The captions on the infographic tripped me out a bit lol
Great piece of content. Can you tell me how to offer a client (new startup) SEO strategy. How and for how long?
It depends on which stituation your client at. Does your client has any website? If it is, may you share with me? I want to examine your client website and I can give some feedback about it.
What I meant by my query is if there is a generalized format to prescribe an SEO strategy. The client is into hospitalization facilitization service. That is, visiting their site you can get a hospital, doctor in any professional area in the area. If you want to talk to a specialist in orthopaedics, they'd have a good database, you can choose you like. You can book appointment with a doctor, across the area. You can also get admitted into a hospital, according to you budget, and need, etc. Hope this gives a clarity about the sort of client's services.
I think SEO is so competitive these days that it's hard to get great results with such basic techniques
No need to be perfect to start the seo, but you need to start to be perfect the seo. :)
Nice Post. Your ability to simplify SEO concepts is truly impressive
I nailed that SEO test with a flawless 100/100, but my websites are still playing hide-and-seek on the first page. Maybe they're camera-shy without backlinks!
SEO has become increasingly competitive, making it difficult to achieve notable results using only basic techniques.