seo for beginners
When it comes to making money online, there are plenty of opportunities. There are many people who make a full-time income with options like affiliate marketing, freelancing and blogging. Regardless of what your niche is, if you desire to be an internet marketer, you have to understand how search engine optimization works.
For those who do not know exactly what “search engine optimization” is or how it works, this article is for you. I will not go into great detail since Wikipedia does a good job explaining the concept . In my own words though, SEO means that when someone types in a word or phrase related to your website topic into Google , Bing etc., your page appears on the top of their links list as most relevant/appropriate.
The thing is, SEO takes time and patience because the search engine algorithms are constantly changing to make it more difficult for marketers to manipulate them. For this reason, I strongly suggest that you stop thinking about fast ways to get rich quick with SEO since it basically does not exist.
SEO takes time and effort but I can guarantee that if you put in the work now , down the road, your website traffic will only go up over time.
The good news though, is that there are several simple steps you can take TODAY to improve your site’s rankings on SERPs (search engine result pages). Keep reading for my list of beginner friendly seo tips!
#1 – Your Title Tags are CRUCIAL
I know I just said that there are no “shortcuts” with search engine optimization, but the title tag is the one exception to this rule. Since it’s just a single line of text , you can easily alter it once your site starts getting good rankings .
Title tags may seem unimportant , but they are CRITICAL to optimizing your keyword density and SEO campaign because it gives search engines an idea about what your page is all about. So instead of writing something like this for your title tag:
Home Page This is the home page for my website!
You should write something more relevant like this:
How To Make Money Blogging – My experience and advice
Keep in mind that you have less than 60 characters to work with so try to get the most relevant term in this space. This will increase your chances of ranking for that phrase and help you get more traffic from Google searches.
#2 – Use Appropriate Keywords
Another important thing to do when writing content (and choosing a title tag) is to use the appropriate keywords and keyword phrases that people would search for related to your website topic . You can find out what these are by using any number of free tools like Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner , Moz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool , or SEO Book’s keyword tool (my personal favorite).
The “keyword” part of seo means that if you choose a subtitle like How To Make Money With A Blog you are basically saying : “hey google, check out this article about how to make money blogging because I know that’s what people type in when they want advice on the topic”. This will help you get higher rankings and more targeted traffic.
#3 – Use Your Keyword Once in First 100 Words
This may seem like a no-brainer but it’s important enough to reiterate: when writing content, use your main keyword or phrase near the beginning of your title tag and at least once in the first 100 words . Of course, do not stuff it into your text because Google won’t rank you highly for duplicate content . However, there is a sweet spot with these 3 concepts since using them too much or not enough can hurt you. For example, if you write something like “I love my dog, he is a German Shepard” then you are not using your keywords enough and will not get as good of a ranking as something like “I love my dog Blue, he is an obedient German Shepard that fetches sticks all day”.
#4 – Create Relevant Internal Links
Another super simple thing you can do to improve your rankings is to create relevant internal links between web pages on your site. You can easily accomplish this by linking words with the same root domain name . For example: if you have an article about how to make money blogging , link from it to another related blog post/article with the anchor text: more tips for making money blogging . This helps Google crawl and index more of your site since they know it’s relevant to the topic.
#5 – Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices
According to Google, more than half of all searches are made on mobile devices vs computers . With this in mind, it’s important that you go through your site with a fine tooth comb and make sure everything is working properly when viewed on smaller screens. This includes things like not having popup windows , redirects, or multiple versions of the same page (a mobile version). If any of these issues are present then you can get penalized by search engines which will hurt your rankings. While it may seem tedious, optimizing your website for mobile devices is super simple to do with tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or Siteliner .
#6 – Use Related Keywords in Image File Names
Your image filenames are part of your SEO optimization strategy which means you should use relevant keywords when naming them. This is because image search is a big factor in Google rankings. For example, let’s say you have an article about starting your own pet sitting business and you include a picture at the top that says “how to start a pet sitting business”. Well, every time someone searches for “how to start a pet sitting business” then that file will show up in their search results.
#7 – Have An FAQ Section
FAQ pages are great because they allow you to rank highly for one or more questions related to your website topic . You can create these pages by simply copying and pasting your most frequently asked questions and adding them with helpful answers. This will help you rank better in the search engines since Google has a tendency to show sites that answer popular questions at the top of their results.
#8 – Create an “About Me” Page
I’m sure we’ve all seen sites before that have what is known as an about page . These can be extremely beneficial since they allow you to construct unique pages on your site with targeted keywords which helps you rank higher in the search engines. You can even go further than this and add things like photos, physical address , social media links, etc… The possibilities are endless when it comes to creating these types of pages so get creative!
#9 – Use Internal Links
If you’re a little confused by what internal links are then don’t worry, you’re not the only one. In simple terms , an internal link is a link from one page of your site to another page on your site. For example, if I wanted to add a link from my dog training business landing page to my home page , I would add this line of code: <a href=”http://www.google.com”>Google</a> . Why does this matter? Well, because it tells Google that these two pages are related and helps them rank both pages higher since they know it’s relevant to their topic.
#10 – Focus On Page Title Tags
Last but not least we have something called a page title tag . This is where you can let Google know what each specific page on your website is about. You accomplish this by simply including a title tag at the top of all pages that contain relevant keywords , which helps Google understand the topic of the page, and gives them an idea of how to rank it. If you’re looking for more information on how to do this, check out W3 Schools’ tutorial .
Conclusion
Now that you have 10 ways to then this doesn’t mean that you should implement them all into your site at once then expect immediate results. Keep in mind that these are just tips to improving your SEO optimization strategy and they don’t guarantee anything. While it may seem like common sense, remember that search engine optimization is something very different from search engine marketing . The former is a process that occurs directly on your website while the latter happens offsite, through other different avenues. This can be through things like links from other websites or social media sites.
Overall, if you have a good product/service then you will eventually start ranking well in the search engines regardless of whether or not you optimise your website for it. However, these tips will definitely help make the process easier and less time consuming plus they will allow you to focus more on marketing your business instead of spending countless hours trying to figure out how to rank higher in Google. Remember, there’s no point worrying about SEO optimization if nobody ever finds out about your site!