Google Search results value user experience and relevance above all else. That’s why Google keeps constantly changing and updating its algorithms to ensure that only the best, most relevant content is being displayed to its users.

Here you have the basic secret of ranking your website on Google’s search result pages: Create a website that is user-friendly, and packed with relevant and useful content, and Google will reward you with a high ranking.

It sounds simple enough, but there’s a lot that goes into creating a website that meets all those criteria. This guide will show you the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) so that you can start from zero and slowly but surely make your way to the top of the search results.

In this Guide, You’ll Learn:

• What is SEO(Search Engine Optimization)?
• Why is SEO Important for Your Business?
• Basic SEO Terms
• How to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
• How to Make Search Engine Optimization Work for Your Website?
• What Are the Benefits of Search Engine Optimization?
• How to Improve Your Website SEO?

What is SEO(Search Engine Optimization)?

SEO is the process of following the best practices for coding, content, design, and user experience to ensure that your website is accessible to search engines and ranks highly in Google’s search results.

or in other words

SEO is the process of adding small incremental improvements to your website and resolving any issues that may be holding your website from appearing on SERPs.

Why is SEO Important for Your Business?

SEO is important for any business that wants to be visible online. After all, if you’re not ranking on the first page of Google’s search results, you’re missing out on a lot of potential traffic and customers.

According to Moz, “93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine.” And what’s more, “75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.”

If you need a spot on that first page, you will have to use SEO to get there.

SEO is not a one-time effort – it’s an ongoing process that needs to be continuously worked on to maintain and improve your ranking. We don’t give you any false promises that we can get you to the top of the search results overnight. But we can promise that if you commit to continuously improving your website using SEO best practices, you will see results over time.

Basic SEO Terms to Understand

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of doing your website’s SEO, let’s first go over some of the basic terms and concepts you need to know.

Index: Google stores each web page it discovers in its database, otherwise known as the index. The entry for every website features an outline of its content and URL address. If a page is retrieved from its source by Google, read through, and added to the index – that process is referred to as ‘indexing.’

Crawl/Crawler: This is the process by which search engines (like Google) “crawl” websites to discover new content and add it to the SERPs. A “crawler” is the software that carries out this process.

SERP: Short for “search engine results page,” this is what you see when you type a query into Google.

Keywords: Keywords are the words or phrases that users type into Google’s search box when they’re looking for something. For example, if you’re a florist, some of the keywords you might target are “flower delivery,” “wedding flowers,” or “flower arrangements.

Backlinks: Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website. They’re important for SEO because they indicate to Google that your site is popular and has valuable content. The more backlinks you have and they have good authority, the higher your rank in the search results.

On-Page Optimization: This refers to all the aspects of SEO that you can control on your website, such as page titles, meta descriptions, content quality, and keyword density.

Off-Page Optimization: This refers to all aspects of SEO you can’t control on your website, such as backlinks and external link building.

These are just a few of the basic terms and concepts related to SEO—there are many more. Get to know them in our detailed SEO Glossary.

How to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Keyword Research

The first step in any SEO process is to do keyword research. This means researching and identifying the terms people use when searching for the types of products or services you offer. By understanding what your customers are looking for, you can tailor your content around those keywords and phrases to make sure it shows up at the top of their search results.

Create Content

Once you have a list of keywords and phrases, it’s time to start creating content. This could include anything from blog posts and articles to videos or infographics. It should all be relevant to your target audience and optimized with the keywords you’ve identified in your research.

Write Distinctive, Precise Page Titles

To rank well in SERPs, it’s essential to have accurate and relevant page titles. A good rule of thumb is to keep them under 60 characters and make sure they accurately describe the content on the page.

Include the Meta Description Tag

The meta description is a snippet of text that appears in the SERP underneath your page title. It should be between 140-150 characters long and summarize the content on the page in a few words.

Structure Your Website Hierarchy

Your website’s navigation should be easy for both visitors and search engine crawlers to understand. This means organizing your content into categories or topics and creating a logical hierarchy that is easy to follow.

Optimize Your Content

 Readers don’t like to be bombarded with keywords, so it’s important to make sure your content is written for humans and optimized for search engines. This means using the keywords you’ve identified strategically throughout your content while maintaining a natural, easy-to-read flow that makes sense to readers. Always focus on providing content that is useful, accurate, and helpful.

Use Links Wisely

Internal and external links are a major part of SEO. Make sure to link to other relevant pages on your site, as well as to authoritative external sources when appropriate. An effective link should have a clear link text that accurately describes the page it’s linking to.

Optimize your Images

Search Engines read images by their file name, alt text, and title. Make sure to include descriptive words and phrases in your image file names and alt text so that search engines can understand what the image is about.

Make your Site Mobile-Friendly

A responsive website is essential in today’s mobile-first world. Make sure your site looks great and functions properly by testing it on google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Help Search Engines Find Your Website Content

 Submit a sitemap to search engines so they can easily find and index all the pages on your website. A sitemap is an XML file that lists all of the URLs on your site along with additional information about each page.

Block Unwanted Crawling by Using Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a file that you can use to block unwanted crawlers from accessing certain parts of your website. This helps search engines focus on the most important pages and prevents them from wasting resources on irrelevant content. You can use this method to control which pages search engine crawlers index and can even block them from accessing your entire site if needed.

Promote Your Website

Getting your website seen by the right people is key to driving more traffic and increasing your rankings in SERPs. To do this, you need to promote your content across multiple channels like email newsletters, social media, and other websites. Each of these channels can help you reach new audiences and drive more qualified leads back to your site.

Monitor your Backlinks

Keeping track of the number and quality of your website’s incoming links is an important part of SEO. Use a tool like Ahrefs or Majestic to monitor your backlinks and identify any potential issues.

Analyze Your Search Performance and User Behavior

Finally, you should analyze the search performance and user behavior of your website. This can help you identify ways to optimize your content for better rankings and more conversions. Google Search Console is a great tool to use for this because it provides valuable insights into how users interact with your website. It also shows you where they’re coming from, what search queries they’re using, and more.

How to Make Search Engine Optimization Work for Your Website?

SEO is a long-term strategy and requires an ongoing effort to keep your website optimized and up-to-date. But with the right approach, you can make it work for your website in the long run. A short answer to this question is to create high-quality content, optimize your on-site elements and off-site signals, monitor your backlinks and user behavior, and use the right tools to get a better understanding of how search engines see your website. By doing these things consistently, you can give yourself an edge in the SERPs and drive more qualified leads to your website.

What Are the Benefits of Search Engine Optimization?

Rank higher in SERPs: SEO can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which in turn means more visibility for your business and more traffic to your website.

Increased visibility and website traffic – SEO can make your website more visible to potential customers and help you get more website traffic.

Better user experience – Optimizing your content for users increases the chances of them finding what they’re looking for, which leads to a better user experience.

More qualified leads – SEO focuses on providing relevant content to users, which helps you attract more qualified leads to your site.

Improved brand awareness – SEO helps you build and maintain an authoritative presence in search results, boosting your brand’s visibility and credibility.

How to Improve Your Website SEO?

As a business owner or website manager, there are a few things you can do to improve your website’s SEO and help it rank higher in Google’s search results.

Check if and How You Show Up on Searches

Here are the 3 simple steps:

Google your website name or URL: This will show you how your website appears on SERPs when users type in your website name or URL. If you don’t see your website listed, that means it’s not ranking at all.

Use site: example.com to search for specific pages on your website: this will show you how individual pages on your website are ranking. If you don’t see a specific page listed, that means it has not been iindexed by Google.

Google Search Console: The URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console shows you how your website is indexed by Google and any errors that may be preventing it from being found in searches.

Enhance Title and Meta Descriptions

If your website is on google and you are still not ranking well, then the best way to improve is by enhancing your content and metadata. Start by writing clearly-defined page titles and meta descriptions that accurately reflect what you offer on each individual page of your site. You should also make sure to add the right keywords in the right places.

Become Eligible for Special Features

Google search results show different types of results, such as text results, image results, video results, rich results, exploration features, and more. To become eligible for these types of special features, you need to follow specific guidelines and make sure your content is properly formatted. These topics are vast and deserve a whole article themselves, so be sure to check out our other related resources here.

Take Image SEO One Step Further

• Providing context for an image is important both to help search engines understand what it shows and also to encourage viewers to click on the image.
• Placing images close to relevant text provides more context, as well as better positioning in SERPs.
• Add Captions to provide valuable information about an image.
• When optimizing images, avoid embedding text in the actual image itself. Text embedded in an image will not be picked up by search engines and cannot help your image rank higher.

• Improve Alt Tags with descriptive keywords.
   
• Search engines prioritize quality content, so Invest in only high-quality images for your website.
   
• Optimize Images to look good on all devices.
   
• Organizing URLs correctly can also help your images rank higher in search engine results pages.
   
• Check that images aren’t blocked on the robots.txt file before submitting them to search engines.

Provide a Good User Experience

Providing a good user experience is essential for ensuring the success of a website. This can be achieved by creating content that is easy to understand, engaging, and visually appealing. To ensure this, websites should focus on page loading times, interactive elements, visual stability, mobile friendliness, accessibility, and security.

Page loading times should be optimized to ensure smooth transitions between pages and fast loading times. Interactive elements should be used to engage the user and keep them interested in the website’s content. Visual stability should be maintained through consistent visibility across all devices, while mobile-friendliness should be ensured by optimizing the website for different screen sizes. Accessibility should also be taken into consideration for users with disabilities. Finally, using HTTPS can help improve the security of the website and provide a better user experience overall. With these elements in place, websites can be sure to provide an enjoyable and successful user experience.

Use Search Console to Get Search Analysis Reports

Google Search Console can help you uncover more insights into how your website is performing in search engine results. It gives you access to reports that show you which pages are ranking, as well as other useful data such as impressions, CTRs, and average positions for each of these pages in the SERPs. These insights can be used to identify areas for improvement and to monitor the effectiveness of changes made to your website.

Consider Hiring an SEO Agency

If you’re looking to get more out of your website, you may want to consider hiring an SEO agency. A professional agency can help you create a comprehensive SEO strategy that takes into account all aspects of search engine optimization, including technical components and content creation. They’ll be able to audit your website and identify problem areas that need attention, as well as provide ongoing support and monitoring to ensure your website remains competitive in SERPs. Hiring a professional agency can be an investment in the future success of your website.

We hope this Beginner SEO Guide has provided an introduction to the world of Search Engine Optimization and how you can use it to optimize your website so that it appears higher in Google Search Results. It’s important to remember that SEO is not a “quick fix” and will require time and effort over time to realize maximum results. However, with a solid understanding of the basics, you can get started on improving your website and getting it noticed by more people.

When you need a more comprehensive approach to optimizing your website, give Aunish SEO services a try. Our team of experienced professionals can walk your website through every stage of the optimization process and, finally, ensure your website is always ranking high in organic search results. You’ll be guaranteed the highest quality service backed by years of experience in the industry. Contact us today to get started!