Learning SEO is important in this digital age, especially when you have a website of your own. Knowing how to optimize websites for search engines properly is invaluable as websites continue to grow more in number. Since most individuals use search engines to look for new things, websites with great SEO are at an advantage.
However, you might not have studied SEO yet because you are overwhelmed with choices. With this guide, you can learn a simple step-by-step process to make you understand search engine optimization better. There will also be resources so that you can get more in-depth insights.
Importance of Learning SEO
While you can get more comprehensive search engine optimization when you rely on the services of SEO companies and automation tools, it is still essential that you learn about SEO. You might not be able to apply every SEO technique because they might be out of your level. However, there are still some basic steps you can do on your own.
If you have a personal blog or an eCommerce website, you need to learn search engine optimization. Search result positions are vital when you want to increase your influence, sales, or both. When you can truly grasp the meaning of SEO, your website will receive a significant increase in traffic.
6 Steps to Learn SEO On Your Own
Like with any new topic, it is hard to start when you have no idea what to do. With this list, you will be able to cover more than just the basics of SEO. Follow these steps and watch your website grow organically.
Step 1: Understand the Basics of SEO
You may already know that it is important to learn SEO – it will allow your website to get a better search result position. Whether you own a business or not, this is essential to consider when you have your web page. However, do you really understand what search engine optimization is and how it works? Before tackling complicated topics, you must learn how search engines work first.
It would be best if you also tried to understand the essential components of SEO – its key elements and components and its goals. When you grasp the topic, you can proceed with the following steps quickly. With the basics covered, you can start on more complicated stages.
If you want to build your SEO knowledge, here are some pages that you can visit.
Step 2: Learn About the Different Types of SEO
When you first learn about SEO, you might get overwhelmed by the number of strategies you can employ. You might even get confused about them. There are techniques that you can apply to your web pages. However, there are also activities that you should conduct outside of it. When you try to boost your search engine ranking, you might decide to back out because you are unsure if you are applying the right strategy.
To help simplify things for you, you should learn about the different kinds of SEO: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. On-page SEO is the one that you will need to know when you want to optimize the contents of your web pages. You choose off-page SEO when you want to build links and increase your site’s reliability. Finally, you conduct technical SEO when you go through elements such as the UI and UX of your website.
To start learning more, here are some resources you can use:
Step 3: Start Keyword Research
Keywords are essential to SEO. Since this is what people use when they query search engines, it is vital that you can determine the right set of keywords for your website. This is because the result of your keywords will be directly applied to your website – its contents, URLs, and meta information.
When you perform keyword research, you can go through it using a variety of ways. You can opt to use automation tools or choose to do it manually. When you do keyword research, you should also remember various types of keywords. The very basic ones include transactional, navigational, and informational keywords.
Here is a great resource that you can use to start with:
Step 4: Research About Your Competitor
Whether you want to improve your business strategies or your search optimization techniques, you can learn a lot from your competitor. When you are just starting with SEO, you must look at competitor websites. You should not only look at your top competitors – but you should also consider new ones.
There are different insights that you can get with competitor research. You can learn which SEO strategies work best by looking at the websites that appear on the first pages of search engine results. You can also learn about the SEO deficiency of lower-ranking sites – and what you can do to address them. Using competitor sites is an excellent way to learn about SEO as it provides a practical demonstration of what you are trying to emulate.
Step 5: Create Relevant and SEO-Friendly Content
The content for your website can be the key to raising your search ranking position if you know how to create them properly. Whether your website prefers to post blogs, videos, infographics, or products, you should ensure that you can utilize all of them. With any content – and especially with written content – you get the chance to integrate more keywords for your website.
However, you might have difficulty creating content like blogs and articles. While you might think that it will be enough to fill them with keywords, that is the wrong course of action to do. It would help if you learned how to make quality but SEO-friendly content. Instead of reaching specific keyword counts, you should let them flow naturally.
Here is a resource for you to learn more:
Step 6: Manually Build Links
Have you noticed that even when you build great content and have all the technical SEO aspects covered, you are still having difficulty getting a better position in search engine results? This may be because your website lacks reliability and trustworthiness. Search engines began a system for link building to ensure that reputable sources are encountered more.
The purpose of link building is to make your site more trustworthy by being linked by other websites. When other websites drop the link to your own, search engines count that as a point to your reliability. However, the links that you make should have a standard of quality. Building links is more than just asking random websites to mention yours.
Here is a comprehensive guide that you can start with:
Attend SEO Courses Online
While you can learn more about SEO through tutorials and guides on the internet, there are times when you get stuck on specific steps. If you have the time or the budget, you can opt to go through available SEO courses. Not only will they teach you more about search engine optimization, but they can also provide you with post-course certification that you can keep and use.
When you want to start learning about SEO more thoroughly, here are sites with related courses that you can take.
Udemy SEO
Udemy is famous for its wide range of course offerings – and you can find a course or two about SEO here. While the price may be high, this website has occasional sales that you can take advantage of. Whether you prefer to learn from the website or the application, you have the chance to download the tutorial videos and available references.
Coursera SEO
Another famous educational website on the internet is Coursera. With Coursera, you can receive similar benefits to what you can get from Udemy. While some professors are exclusive to one platform, most instructors opt to teach in both. If you want to pay for subscription plans instead of a per-project basis, Coursera is a great website to visit. This way, you can go through various topics at a single time.
SEMrush Academy
SEMrush Academy also offers tutorial videos, exclusive references, and certifications. While this platform has fewer available topics, they are sometimes more comprehensive. They also provide very detailed SEO guides, so you can choose to start with them.
Essential Things to Know When Learning SEO
Whether you choose to go through guides or online courses, there are some things that you should keep in mind while you go through SEO topics. These notes can help you have an easier and more fruitful time to conduct better SEO in the future.
- Rules for SEO can change from time to time.
- It is essential to learn from verified guides.
- Practical application can be an excellent teacher.
- It takes time to become a master of search engine optimization.
